Castaways
by Baroqy
Summary: McKay and Sheppard are stranded on a planet with no hope of immediate rescue. Sheppard gets infected with a parasite and McKay tries not to die.
1. Chapter 1

**Castaways by Baroqy**

_Summary_: McKay and Sheppard are stranded on a planet with no hope of immediate rescue. Both men discover that the business of surviving is fairly tedious – right up until Sheppard gets infected with a parasite.

_Features_: Psycho McKay, Psycho Sheppard and obligatory Shep whumping. Can it get any more fun than that?

_Disclaimer_: I don't own them or Atlantis or any of that stuff. It's all somebody else's intellectual property. Lucky bastards. I'm just playing with them temporarily and promise to return them when I'm done or they're too broken to be entertaining.

_Feedback_: That would be cool since it's my first serious fanfic. If you're inclined to offering some beta services that would also be appreciated. The story is actually finished but it's in dire need of editing. Think of it this way – if you like the story and you decide to beta you'll get to read new chapters before anyone else does.

_Notes_: Any medical errors or armed forces errors are all mine. I've ramped up Lorne and others to act like actual Marines as opposed to girls. Consequently everyone is definitely more potty mouthed. Except for Weir of course. Heh.

_Usage Notes_: The words 'stargate' and 'jumper' are not capitalized because I use them as common nouns, rather than proper nouns.

((--))

**Chapter One**

Rodney McKay surveyed the damage to the control systems in the jumper and knew that there was only one answer he could give with any certainty. "We're screwed. We are so totally screwed. The cards are cracked right up the middle and I'd bypass them but there isn't a spare card to bypass to and even if I could find a way to create a jury rigged card we'd need more than one and..."

He ran out of things to say at that point. It wasn't even an answer really. Just random thoughts passing directly from his brain to his mouth. The answer he wanted to give wasn't available and the one thing that frustrated him above all else was being defeated by a problem. Hence the verbal deluge that he'd been running for the past ten minutes. A more suitable answer would have been, "I can get this up and running in a day or so." If only. Instead he was faced with at least six fried control cards and a jumper that had been hemorrhaging power as soon as Sheppard had plowed the ship into the atmosphere.

Mind you, there hadn't been a lot of choice when the stargate exploded.

That was something Rodney didn't see every day. An exploding stargate. In fact, he couldn't even fathom what would be powerful enough to destroy a stargate, apart from the biggies nature tended to throw around. Then again the disappearance of the stargate had become a secondary concern once the jumper had failed. The damage from the resulting shockwave had turned the jumper into a flying brick and Sheppard had only just managed to land it on the shoreline of a continent in the southern hemisphere.

Sheppard fiddled with the console while Rodney tried figuring out whether he could fix the jumper enough to get it airborne.

"We're sort of screwed. Not totally screwed. There's a difference."

"Thanks for the optimistic sentiments, Colonel. I feel so much more cheerful."

Sheppard swiveled around in the pilot's chair. "If that made you happy you're going to love the next part."

"Which is?"

"If the jumper's almost out of power then you'd better start deciding what we can do without."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning every time we go near a console it lights up. That means we keep using power and I'm guessing we probably want to reserve power for the important stuff. Right?"

Rodney nodded, found himself wondering why he hadn't thought of it first. "Yes, yes. Of course."

"So that means we need to shut down everything we can do without. Anything that's surplus."

The seriousness of the situation began to hit Rodney. Repeatedly and just like a school boy bully. He was no good at this whole survival stuff and it was throwing off his ability to think straight. Yes, he came through in the end but not without considerable anxiety. Survival at any cost was getting into Sheppard's area. "What do you suggest?"

Sheppard got out of his chair and went and keyed the hatch open. They both looked outside, got a good view of a windswept beach. Waves crashed foaming and high into the shore. A few bird-like creatures scurried across the sand in a constant search for food. Sheppard stood, staring outside, and Rodney was not one for coping with extended silences.

He offered a prompt. "Well?"

Sheppard turned back to him. "We're going to have to leave the hatch down."

Wind swept into the jumper. Rodney shivered. It was chilly and that meant being uncomfortable and he never liked being uncomfortable. He also wasn't a big fan of whatever may have been lurking outside as it could probably get inside. "What exactly do you mean by leaving the hatch down?"

"Every time the hatch closes or opens we use power."

Rodney's genius brain clicked. "Oh hell. Yes. If we run out of power when the hatch is closed…"

"We're stuck," concluded Sheppard.

The Ancients, bless them, included so many fail safes in their system they had failed to include any manual bypasses for much of their technology. Including the hatch. In some ways it made sense. You didn't want some lunatic manually keying open the hatch in the middle of space, or under the ocean but it did make for tricky rescue situations.

"Yes. Yes. That's right. Okay, any thoughts on what we should leave going?"

"At this point in time, I'd like some heat," replied Sheppard.

"That's going to drain right out of the open hatch."

"We can rig a barrier. It won't be completely insulated but it should help. The question is, even with everything else powered down, are we going to have enough remaining charge to keep warm?"

Rodney did a quick mental calculation in his head. They could get heat. Not enough to be toasty but enough to keep them from dying if the temperature got any cooler. Which meant he needed to get rid of any tiny power usage that was going to mess up their chances of surviving for more than a week. He pointed back towards the controls.

"Right, you need to remember to turn off the air recycling, most of life support, uh…" Rodney clicked his fingers together, getting his brain to work its way through the jumper schematics he could recall from memory. "I think the HUD is independent but it's wrecked anyway. Power it down to be safe. The hatch we've got covered. Inertial dampeners need to be disconnected. I'll just yank the cabling. The computer and DHD need their control crystals pulled to deactivate them and that's it. We can figure out how to power up the radio later."

Sheppard nodded and they moved forward into the cockpit together. Sheppard began powering down and at the same time, Rodney applied himself to disconnecting anything that would be inclined to start getting shiny around the A.T.A gene.

In their haste to power down the key systems Rodney kept thinking he'd forgotten something important. A second later, the thought he'd been trying to grasp crossed back into conscious thought.

"Wait!"

Sheppard's hand hovered over the console.

"What?"

"Don't we want to set up a homing beacon? You know, guide the rescue party to us?"

"That would depend, Rodney."

"On what?"

"On whether you also wanted other parties turning up. One's that weren't interested in rescuing us. Or partying."

He hadn't thought of that either, which irritated him even more. How come Sheppard was the one getting all of the good ideas? "Crap."

"Yeah, crap is right. I'm voting for erring on the side of caution. We only use the radio when we're absolutely sure that we know someone from Atlantis is in orbit. Besides, it's no use inviting someone down to rescue us if we're just a couple of novelty ice cubes."

And with that Sheppard recommenced his power down sequence. It took all of ten-minutes for Rodney and Sheppard to complete the process and it was depressing. The jumper made a strange whirring sound, like a last gasp, leaving nothing but a faint hum to indicate any remaining charge. Everything else was still and silent. No roar of the engine, or the glow of the lights. The jumper was officially a former spaceship and their brand new home.

Rodney glanced at Sheppard and thought he was strangely unaffected by the process. Instead of mourning the death of his ship, the pilot got out of his seat, checked the time on his watch and headed for the back of the jumper. He began pulling boxes down from the storage racks. "We need to take inventory. You got your PDA on you?"

Rodney nodded and pulled it out of his vest pocket. "Never leave home without it."

"I'll count, you write it down."

As Sheppard starting opening cases, Rodney did as he was told and stood poised to scribble down the notes. If he'd had enough time he would have used one of his own applications on his PDA to make a compressed database filled with neatly categorized records. Instead he opted for the notepad mode and cleaning it up later.

The first case was easy. Weaponry. Two Glock 19s, two Lugers and four clips for both. A Taser. Rodney duly jotted those facts down while Sheppard shut the case, put it back and took down the next one.

The next case turned out to be full of mundane items such as toilet paper. Maybe he'd be grateful later on - if they were stranded long enough. Still, it was boring. They were taking inventory and it seemed to Rodney they were probably ignoring more important matters. What those important matters were, his brain couldn't tell him. Sheppard was going through the next case, telling Rodney to write down that they had five MREs and a dozen power bars. Two sleeping bags were rolled and stowed under a bench seat. Goody.

This was followed by a case of medical supplies, a portable defibrillator, survival blankets and other stuff that Rodney was starting to lose interest in. The problem was that they were stranded clear across the other side of the Pegasus Galaxy. They weren't due to report in until later that day. A standard jumper was going to take three months or more to reach them. The Daedalus was heading back to Earth so that was eighteen days and then eighteen days back to reach Atlantis and then say, fourteen days or some to reach them, so that was what? Seven weeks – nearly two months stuck on the planet at a minimum. He felt the rising clamor of hysteria and suppressed it. This time around Rodney McKay wasn't going to bleat, moan and whine because it wouldn't do them any good. He could do this, he told himself, he just needed to distract himself from all the realities of their situation and concentrate on thinking up solutions. He could do this…

"Are you listening to me?"

Rodney started, realized he hadn't been carrying out his assigned duty. "Sorry. I was trying to think of a way to get out of our current mess."

Sheppard gave him a look that said he wasn't in the mood for anything Rodney might say or do in the next twenty-four hours. "Look we need to do this and figure out what our situation is. Once I know what the supply situation is, we can do recon and by the way, I plan to get all this done before it gets dark."

Rodney sighed. "Okay, fine. Let's get this over with."

Sheppard went back to reciting the contents of another case. The case contained flares and torches and it struck Rodney that having flares was funny. After all, the Daedalus wasn't going to be able to see a pathetic little flare from high orbit. What was even funnier was Sheppard finding a bucket in the right side bench.

Bucket. One of. Galvanized stainless steel. With handle.

Whoever packed the jumper was an idiot.

((--))

Carson never admitted it but he always experienced some anxiety about an hour before an off world team was due back through the stargate. Just a twinge really, a thought that niggled in his mind that prepared him for whatever crisis may or may not happen. Teams coming in hot followed by whatever alien weapon beam was being flung at them, teams arriving injured, teams with people unconscious, only part of the team arriving back and more worrying, teams that didn't come back at all.

In his infirmary he tracked which teams were off world and which teams were due back on his laptop and if that was a quirk on his part, it was one that he preferred to keep private. Especially when he always tagged Sheppard's team with red. Because inevitably they were always the ones that got themselves into trouble.

He was completing the paperwork for a patient he'd seen that morning. Seven stitches to the forehead of some hapless lieutenant who'd managed to run his skull into a pylon while playing an impromptu game of football in a corridor. The same lieutenant was probably going to have a visit from Colonel Sheppard about shifting the games out to the pier. Then Sheppard would probably volunteer to join them.

Clicking on Save, he opened his next file, and started typing. That's when the alarm he'd set up started beeping. It continued beeping but Carson didn't check it because he knew what it would say.

Colonel Sheppard and Rodney McKay were overdue.

No surprises there.

((-))

They'd left the confines of the jumper when the inventory was complete and started walking along the beach. Sheppard had his P90 at the ready, one hand clutching the life signs detector. It was running on independent power and Rodney presumed that the life signs detector would continue to run after he, Sheppard and both of their PDAs were long dead.

Rodney had made sure that he'd powered off the heat before they left. In a weird way it felt like leaving his apartment on Earth for a trip to the supermarket. Iron off? Check. Heater off? Check. Locked the door? Check.

Rodney trudged along, shivered again, but felt like he was warming up – at last. They had pulled on their sweaters, zipped into their jackets and with the vest over their jackets it seemed to provide enough insulation. The air temperature was hovering around an annoying thirteen degrees Celsius. Perfectly survivable but it was a temperature that made Rodney wish he had gloves. Still, sticking his hands in his pockets worked just as well. More annoyingly Sheppard seemed unaffected and Rodney had always maintained his own private fantasy that should it ever come down to surviving in the cold, his extra bit of padding in the form of body fat would offer an advantage. But no, Rodney was cold and Sheppard just kept marching along as if they were having a stroll on a pleasant summer's day.

He would have been more than happy to stay in the jumper and not bother with the whole recon mission but Sheppard had insisted, arguing that it was impractical to send Rodney to scout by himself and Sheppard didn't want to leave Rodney alone in an area they knew nothing about. They'd barely been on the planet a day and Rodney felt like a liability.

Rodney hiked along with Sheppard, displeased with the way the wet sand was clinging to his boots. He'd experienced some initial trepidation but now, nearly thirty minutes later, he was getting bored. If there was any wildlife or hostiles on the planet they didn't appear to be attracted to a beach lifestyle.

Sheppard concentrated on the scanner, not bothering to keep up a conversation and this irked Rodney. He was never able to handle silence. Just as he was about to open his mouth and say something for the sake of speaking, Sheppard suddenly held up his right hand. Rodney collided with him.

"What the hell was that? I hate it when you military types use tactical hand signals. It looks like you're trying to park a plane."

"It means freeze but in your case it means shut up and stand still," said Sheppard.

"Oh crap, did you see something? What?" Rodney tried unsuccessfully to rotate his head 360-degrees in the vain hope of seeing the whatever-it-was that Sheppard had seen.

"No, I thought I heard something. So be quiet."

Rodney shut up and stood still, straining to hear anything. The only audible sounds were the soft twittering sounds coming from one of the bird creatures.

After a few moments Sheppard relaxed slightly, put down his hand and began walking again.

"So does this mean we'll be walking and then suddenly stopping for the next half hour?" Rodney was ramping up to full blown sarcasm because he just wanted to go back to the jumper. He wanted to sit down, surrounded by their supplies, and practice denial for a night. Pretend that everything was okay and they weren't stuck in some backwater planet with no hope of rescue in the immediate future.

The military leader of Atlantis didn't reply and looked around again, surveying the tree line. Then he pointed straight ahead. "Okay, I think we've found it."

"Found what? Could you try, just for once, to be specific? Subject Verb Object. Sheppard sees a tree. Sheppard runs from a Wraith. Sheppard shoots a gun."

"Sheppard tells Rodney to shut up. Again."

"See, it's easy when you know how."

Sheppard didn't reply to Rodney's latest zinger, just changed his direction to cut through to the beginnings of marshland, forcing Rodney to follow. It was even worse than the wet sand because water was seeping into Rodney's boots as they traipsed through a combination of fine mud, scrub and grass. They kept moving through the soggy landscape, heading inland, Rodney following Sheppard, completely clueless as to Sheppard's intent. It was then that they reached a river bank and Sheppard once more decided to stop.

"This is a good sign."

"Standing in some bog that's probably crawling with bugs and reptiles and poisonous snakes is a good sign?"

"No, standing by fresh water is a good sign." Sheppard walked down to the river's edge, reached down, dipped a hand into the water, and brought a finger back to his tongue to taste it. "Yeah, seems okay. I'm thinking we can carry the water back to the jumper; work on making sure we do a regular supply run every second day or so."

"You want us to carry it back now?"

Sheppard sighed. He was sighing a lot and Rodney was feeling like the stupidest man on the planet – and at this point he was. Rodney didn't like the feeling at all.

"No, I'm saying that we know we've got a source of water. In case you missed the key chapters in the survival manual, it talks about being unable to survive without water after three to five days. You might have also missed the key point where we took inventory and only had enough water for two days."

"Okay, fine! Forgive me for being distracted by running scenarios in my head and trying to figure out how to get us home. Actually, I _did_ realize we were going to run short of water but instead of whining about dying, I thought I'd try and help by coming up with a solution!" Rodney heard his own voice go up an octave and winced as hysteria made an unscheduled appearance.

Rodney felt a hand reach for his back and give him an awkward pat. Or it might have been a slap. It was hard to tell. Sheppard was trying for empathy and doing a rotten job.

"I'm sorry, Rodney. I guess it's been a long day for both of us. Look, we've found a water source and that's the best thing that could have happened. Let's head back."

"Oh great now you're cutting the recon short to pander to me."

"No, I found what I wanted. We can go back."

"I'm perfectly capable of going further. I'm not five. I don't need a nap."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a time out, Rodney."

"Hah. So funny. So very funny."

"Yes, and the funny guy is heading back to the jumper."

Sheppard turned around and started walking determinedly back the way they'd come. Rodney realized he didn't have much choice but to follow.

The last thing he wanted was to be stuck all alone on this God forsaken planet.

((--))

The briefing room was full. It got full in critical moments. When Atlantis was under attack, or an off world team had gone missing. In this case the room was overflowing with a team of scientists and a frustrated Major Lorne.

Zelenka looked like a kid who'd just lost a family pet.

"I am sorry Dr. Weir but we cannot dial the gate address."

"For what reason?" Dr. Elizabeth Weir asked the obvious question but felt everyone in the room needed to hear it.

"Because there is no reciprocal gate to complete the wormhole," replied Zelenka.

"Meaning?" She pressed him for a more specific and depressing conclusion.

"There is no more stargate. For whatever reason it is no longer there."

There weren't a lot of reasons a stargate could disappear. The only ones that sprung to mind involved the complete destruction of something – the stargate for one and moving up the scale, a planet or solar system for seconds. Not a great thought. "Okay, we're not going to jump to any conclusions. We wait for the Daedalus, and they check out the situation."

Elizabeth noted that Major Lorne looked pissed. Probably because he'd have to assume temporary command of Atlantis and Lorne didn't like the role. He'd do it if he had to but it seemed the military commanders of Atlantis were getting a reputation for being cursed and he didn't want to be the next in line. Being the consummate professional that he was, he offered no immediate protests to her plan.

Ronon had other ideas. He'd been standing at the back with Teyla, casually leaning against the wall. She'd announced her plan and Ronon had promptly stopped leaning.

"So, we're just going to sit around here and wait for the Daedalus? That's a bad idea."

"We don't have a lot of choice."

The Satedan gave her a look that said she wasn't trying hard enough. Teyla stepped in front of Ronon, assumed her diplomatic stance. Weir had always liked that about Teyla. She tried talking first, and then she'd try fighting. Ronon had never been big on the whole talking through a solution angle.

"Dr. Weir, I am sure there are good reasons for waiting for the arrival of the Daedalus but there must be other ideas that we could try."

Several marines nodded. Major Lorne stepped forward, having decided to break his silence.

"I have a suggestion, Ma'am."

"Go ahead, Major."

"I'm thinking we hop the jumper through a series of gates and come out within spitting distance of the Colonel and McKay's position."

Zelenka shook his head. "It is a very good idea Major but there is a problem. There is no 'spitting distance' – as you say. Just very long trip. Nearest gate means it is still three months to planet. Might as well wait on Daedalus."

"We should go anyway. As backup."

Ronon nodded in agreement. "What he said."

"It's three months. We don't even know if the jumper can sustain life support or its power for that long." She hated giving them such a negative reply because she wanted her team back as much as anyone but she was also not a woman prone to foolhardiness. Not when it could mean losing more people.

Zelenka nodded. "We have run simulations to try and determine these things but even Ancient technology can run dry. Besides, three months in a jumper, not good for the… sanity."

Lorne and Ronon both opened his mouth to protest and Elizabeth shook her head. "I'm sorry. We're going to have to wait."

((--))


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Sheppard felt better once they made it back to the jumper in one piece. He hadn't intended to take his own case of the jitters out on Rodney but he'd been worried about their situation until he'd found the estuary and the river feeding into it. The jumper was a natural shelter, they could probably get most of their food from fishing, and they had a water source. He could relax a little. Not much but some. There was still the matter of ensuring their only source of heat didn't fail any sooner than necessary, but right now they could survive.

He'd realized they were in trouble as soon as the jumper had been damaged. Controls gone to shit, no maneuverability, the jumper proving that the only thing that ever kept it pointing in the right direction was a finely tuned computer guidance system and kick-ass engine power. Fighting the damn thing all the way he'd angled the ship so the butt was lower than the front in a vain attempt to create some drag across the belly and tried to aim for an area on the planet that just might give them some chance of getting out alive. It had been a knee jerk reaction but he'd seen the telltale signs of a river emptying into the sea and knew that at least they could find fresh water.

He'd been more astonished than Rodney to find he'd somehow managed to get them down in one piece. They were still stranded, but baring any accidents, they would be alive when a rescue team turned up.

That just left the standard challenges of a mission. Such as keeping Rodney McKay upright and walking the mental health line. Something Sheppard was good at doing for a specifically short duration. A week - maybe two – tops. Sheppard clung to the knowledge that no matter what happened, the requirement to spend every waking hour and maybe every sleeping hour with Rodney McKay would be limited. As much as he liked Rodney as a friend he also liked the fact that he could get some down time. He knew that after a mission he could go and hide in his quarters and Rodney could go and verbally harangue someone else.

A month or more of Rodney was going to test his patience.

On a more positive note, Rodney seemed to have run out of steam right after he'd turned the heat back on and checked the power levels. He was quietly sitting on one of the benches in the back of the jumper, contemplating his muddy boots, and Sheppard was happy for this quiet side of his companion to continue. It gave him a chance to check some boxes for the night vision goggles.

"It's going to be dark soon," he said to himself and to Rodney.

Rodney nodded but didn't reply.

Sheppard continued. "I thought I'd take the first watch."

Rodney ignored the statement. Instead he replied, "My shoes are wet."

As if this had anything to do with their situation at the moment. Some days he just couldn't follow McKay's train of thought. If it was a train at all. Most days it was more like a ship that had lost rudder control. He chose to ignore the remark, figuring McKay would complete it eventually.

"I'll take it to zero-four-hundred. You take from zero-four-hundred to eight-hundred."

"My feet are cold. My feet are cold because my shoes are wet. My shoes are wet because you insisted on making me go for a hike."

Okay, so there was the rest of the thought. Rodney was clearly in a pissy mood.

"Had to be done and I'm sorry that your feet are cold. Take off your shoes and let them dry out. Tomorrow I'm going to rig something, so you'll be more comfortable."

Having complained about his feet, McKay rambled into another topic that had clearly been weighing on his mind.

"You know if there's something really big is out there, we don't stand a chance. Okay, yes, the life sign detector didn't show anything but is that any indication of a lack of life signs? They might not be in range…"

"How big were you thinking? 'Cause unless we get a T-Rex running at us I'm thinking my trusty P90 is going to put it out of commission."

Rodney looked up from his shoes. "Are we sure this planet is uninhabited?"

"Not totally sure, but pretty sure."

"Great. So apart from the unknown carnivorous life forms we might also run into the not-so-friendly natives."

"Rodney, you saw about as much of the HUD info as I did. The HUD said zip, nadda, zero."

"The same HUD that went offline about two-seconds later?"

"Yes, that HUD." Sheppard found the night vision goggles as he talked to Rodney and a set of torches. He'd been reminded by more than a few people that uninhabited planets were uninhabited for a reason and he didn't want to go there just yet, so he went for a change of subject. "So, we've got some time to kill before beddy-byes. I don't suppose you brought a pack of cards with you?"

"The only card game I've got is Solitaire. On my PDA."

"Okay, maybe we'll just have to get a campfire going and have a sing along." He said it with a straight face. Sort of.

"There will be no singing. If there's any singing I'm walking into the ocean and drowning myself."

Sheppard smiled as Rodney started to sound more like… Rodney. "Scratch the singing then. I guess that leaves eating."

Rodney brightened considerably at the mention of food and Sheppard pulled down the case containing their meager supplies, dug around in the contents.

"Since it's our first night in our new home, I think we deserve not one, but two power bars." Sheppard pulled out a selection from the case with a flourish and laid them across the bench. "Peanut butter, or chocolate and peanut butter?"

"Two? Two measly power bars for dinner? We've got MREs, we could have those because I for one could really do with a meal."

"It's a lot smarter if we conserve our rations. We might need them if the going gets tough."

Rodney stared at him in disbelief. "The going gets tough… What, may I ask, is it now? A freaking camping trip?"

Sheppard suppressed a sigh. "I just think it's a lot smarter to concentrate on living off the environment, just in case." He winced at that phrase. He really had to learn not to use phrases like, 'just in case', 'being careful', or 'having a backup in case of emergency' around Rodney.

Rodney didn't say anything, perhaps sensing that Sheppard was serious and grabbed two peanut butter flavored power bars. He tore off a wrapper and took a bite.

"Yummy."

"I thought you liked them."

"I like them when I'm on the verge of falling over from low blood sugar and because they're the only thing that will fit in my vest pocket."

"Yeah, I keep hoping they'll figure out how to miniaturize a turkey sandwich." Sheppard mimicked Rodney and tore off the wrapper. Took a bite and started chewing. It wasn't that bad but like all things designed in conjunction with the military it was designed to keep a person going, not so much for the actual enjoyment.

Rodney, beyond hungry, inhaled the first bar, then tore into the second wrapper. He slowed about half way through and began to relax enough to actually chew his food.

Sheppard in the meantime had barely worked his way through the first one. He decided against consuming the second and instead put it in a vest pocket.

Their first meal in their new home took a total of fifteen minutes and only because Rodney managed to pace himself near the end, perhaps realizing that he wasn't going to be able to avail himself of any midnight snacks in the near future.

Rodney looked forlornly at the wrappers and asked, "Now what do we do?"

Sheppard glanced at his watch. Evening had arrived and it was nineteen-hundred hours. Crap. It was going to be a long night. He grabbed a torch, turned it on and once more studied the world that lay beyond the confines of their jumper.

There as a full moon. The light spilled onto the beach, the darkened sea was highlighted in places and there was nothing much to be heard except for the rhythmic sound of white tipped water rolling onto the shore. It was cold and still and it was kind of peaceful.

"I'm going outside. Want to come along?"

Rodney seemed startled by the suggestion. "Outside?"

Sheppard gestured in front of him. "Seriously, outside is practically inside anyway with the hatch open. It'll kill time."

"Or kill us. It's freezing."

"Then use the sleeping bag as an extra layer."

Sheppard didn't wait for McKay to follow him, just stepped out of the jumper and strode down the sand towards the waves.

Behind him he heard the sounds of griping. "Oh. Fine. Fine!"

He walked a few meters forward and looked up. Looked up at an alien sky and the stars of the Pegasus Galaxy. There would be more visible if not for the moon, but there was enough. He turned the torch off, let his eyes adjust.

This was his secret thing. On every alien world where he'd ever seen night fall, he'd tipped back his head to look up at the sky and see the stars, pick out the patterns, name constellations. People had navigated by the Northern Star in the Northern Hemisphere, by the Southern Cross in the South. Somewhere in the skies he gazed at there was someone else's North Star guiding them all to their destinations.

He saw that Rodney had joined him out of the corner of his eye. The scientist had placed his sleeping bag around his shoulders and it made him look like he'd escaped from a rest home.

Rodney followed his line of sight and also stared up at the night sky.

"You want first dibs on naming rights?" asked Sheppard.

Rodney didn't look at Sheppard, just continued observing. "I always wanted a star named after me."

"Now's your chance. But don't limit yourself because I'm going for a constellation."

There was silence as they tried to pick out likely patterns in the sky. Rodney eventually seemed to settle on a set of stars in the west and held out his arm, making a fist.

"Gateship One."

"Where?"

Rodney measured off two lengths upwards with his arm. "Twenty degrees altitude and 270-degrees azimuth. I think."

Horizontal coordinates. Sheppard had gone through the basics of navigation when he was in his flight classes. It was a simple method of estimating the position of an object in the sky and a pretty good one. He closed one eye, held out his own arm, made a fist, measuring upwards to follow Rodney's directions and found the constellation. Yeah, it looked like a jumper.

"You're never going to let me forget that are you?"

"You said I had first naming rights. I want Gateship One."

Sheppard nodded. "Okay. You got it."

"Your turn."

He went back to checking out the stars, casting around for something that struck his fancy. To his amusement, he saw the perfect constellation for naming.

"Stargate. Forty-five degrees altitude, 180-degrees azimuth."

Rodney shuffled around and check out Sheppard's find. A compact circle of stars glimmered above him.

"Pity it's not the real one."

"Yeah." A depressing thought and one that Sheppard didn't want to dwell on. "Next constellation has to be named after the first person you had a serious crush on."

"I'm not doing that," squeaked Rodney.

"Why not? They're not here and I'm not telling if you're not."

"Because it's completely pointless."

"We can't name every constellation after stuff in Atlantis. That'd be completely lacking in imagination and I'm not going to enjoy sitting out here watching constellations called DHD and MALP."

"Fine. If it'll make you happy… My lab partner Tracy."

'Did Tracy have a last name?"

"Yes, but I'm not telling you. Who was yours?"

"Miss Watson. Sixth grade teacher.

"Did Miss Watson have a first name?"

"Yes, but I have no idea what it was."

He wasn't sure but he thought he saw Rodney smile a little and they went back to trying to find a group of stars that might be misconstrued as having the shape of a woman. They had no luck and it wasn't for lack of trying.

The next time Rodney spoke it was to complain. "I'm getting a crick in my neck."

He'd have to agree with that statement. "Me too. 'Sides, I think we can safely say that we're not in any hurry to complete this within the next week."

"What gave you your first clue, Colonel?" Rodney was trying for a joke but it just came out bitter and unhappy. Sheppard passed the torch off to Rodney.

It was a mere few steps back into the jumper. Sheppard risked a glance at his watch. Twenty-hundred hours. If he could keep Rodney entertained for another hour or two, exhaustion might set in and he'd go to bed. It would be harder for Rodney to complain or feel any anxiety if he was asleep – or at least, that was Sheppard's current assumption. In reality he doubted either of them would be able to do more than doze.

Inside the jumper Rodney had deposited himself in a chair up front and was occupying himself by swiveling it from left to right while waving the torch around. Then Sheppard clicked. The guy was always used to thinking. Thinking about solving problems, postulating a theory, thinking about solutions to the theory. Without the constant source of stimulation and the opportunities to hyper focus Rodney was literally clueless. He had no idea what to do apart from work.

Sheppard's own theory was that if they could settle into some sort of routine then Rodney would be fully occupied. It wouldn't take much either – the chore of living would keep them going from dawn until dusk. There was food to find, water to carry, a fire to get going and keep going, and basic hygiene to sort out. Rodney wasn't going to have much time to worry. Hell, neither of them were going to have much time to worry. At least, that was the theory.

He just hoped that they weren't on the receiving end of any unexpected surprises.

"Rodney, keep that up and you'll break the chair not to mention using up the batteries."

"It's Ancient. It's not supposed to break."

"Way to go on the subtext, but it's not going to change anything."

"Great." The chair stopped swiveling but the torch continued its light show on the roof.

"You need to go to bed."

"Let me just explain. Again. I am not five."

"Look, I'm going to wake you up at oh-four-hundred whether you like it or not. If you want to get a decent length of sleep you'll think about trying."

Rodney turned off the torch, plunging them both into semi-darkness. Sheppard grabbed it off him while he had the opportunity. Moonlight spilled through the jumper's forward windows.

"Fine. If you want to play mother, I'll do as I'm told. Are you going to tell me which side I can have too?"

"No, Rodney. You can choose whether you want the left bench or the right bench."

"I'll take the left."

"There you go. That was easy."

It was clear that Rodney just wasn't going to be jollied out his bitchy mood. Rodney put his hands on his hips.

"I need the torch back. I have to make a bathroom visit."

Sheppard handed the torch back again, followed Rodney to the hatch.

"You had better not even contemplate supervising," said Rodney.

"Don't worry, the thought of getting anywhere near you would probably cause the power bar I ate to reappear. Just do me a favor. Take a leak on the side of the jumper. I don't need you wandering up into a sand dune, or trying for a tree and getting lost."

"Isn't that unhygienic?"

"I think the jumper's hull can take it and the sand will absorb it."

Rodney made an 'ewwww' expression then disappeared around to the right of the jumper.

Sheppard waited at the entrance, nervous at having Rodney out of sight and instead relying on the spill of the torchlight to indicate Rodney hadn't strayed too far.

Silence. Sheppard waited for what he thought was a suitable time and then spoke up.

"You finished yet?"

"Stop talking, I'm trying to concentrate."

He did as he was told, heard the dull splatter of urine hitting sand and the sound of a zip going back up. Then there was the sound of Rodney tripping over his own feet.

"Owwwww!"

Sheppard was instantly alert. "You okay? You need any help?"

"God damn it no. I do not need help. I just tripped but I think I hurt my finger."

"Okay, well why don't you complain _inside_."

Rodney reappeared a few seconds later, looking even more depressed. He shoved the torch at Sheppard, making him hold it while Rodney studied his right forefinger in earnest.

"Look at that. I'm bleeding!"

"It's a scratch."

"But I'm bleeding."

"It's a scratch."

"It could get infected. We're on an alien world and I could get infected with God knows what especially since we've got primitive hygiene standards."

"Then go and use the medkit. You know the thing with the iodine and Band-Aids in it."

Sheppard tried to suppress a sigh and shone the torch over to webbing holding the plastic container. Rodney did as he was told, carefully swabbed at this wound and then wrapped it in flesh colored plastic. Mission accomplished, Rodney started dealing with other concerns.

"We got any wipes around here?"

"Don't think so."

"Ugh."

"Be a man Rodney. You can survive the contamination for one night. Besides, the last thing I heard, urine is sterile."

"Until it leaves the body," shot back Rodney.

Knowing the man as well as he did, Sheppard concluded that Rodney was now probably contemplating the horrors of having to use a field latrine. Translation: big hole in the ground.

His erstwhile companion didn't say anything else but spread out his sleeping bag on the left side bench. He took off his jacket, balled it up to create a pillow, removed his shoes, grimaced at the state of his socks but left them on because, he explained, he hated cold feet. Then he zipped himself up and lay there bored and wide awake.

Sheppard took the opportunity to put on the night vision goggles, strap the P90 to his vest and pick a good vantage point to wile away the next eight hours or so.

"I'm not sleepy," stated Rodney about two minutes later.

"Try closing your eyes."

There was a nano-second of silence.

"Still not sleepy."

"Try solving a problem or something. Quietly."

"Can't think of anything."

"I thought you were trying to get a workable grand unification field theory going."

"It's just a hobby. The universe keeps getting weirder which means it keeps getting hard to find a universal constant. Actually there probably isn't one and that's going to freak a whole bunch of scientists out."

"So God plays dice?"

"Quoting Einstein. I'm impressed."

"I liked Niels Bohr's reply better. 'Einstein, stop telling God what to do'. But I couldn't think of a way to segue it into the conversation."

"That's a big word Colonel."

"Conversation?"

"No, segue."

"So does he?"

"At this stage in the physics game it looks like he plays bingo, poker, and the lottery."

"That's God for you. Just when you think you've got things right he shifts the finish line."

Rodney let out a chuckle at the thought. "It's as good as explanation as any."

Sheppard turned his attention back to the beach looking for any telltale heat signatures and found nothing. If this world had any substantial wildlife he wasn't seeing it. He resisted the urge to talk to Rodney again and hoped that Rodney would drift off once he had a chance to settle down.

Two minutes later there was a shift in his friend's breathing and at long last it seemed Atlantis' lead scientist had actually fallen asleep.

((--))

Teyla Emmagan had never felt more out of place than she did now. Without Sheppard and McKay it seemed that she was a stranger on Atlantis. Or at least, that was what she felt like and she was almost certain Ronon was going through a similar experience.

She hadn't realized until now how much she was part of Sheppard's team and how much being part of that team grounded her amongst the humans.

Now that he was gone, she was in a holding pattern. She desperately wanted to be involved in trying to rescue Sheppard and McKay but she had been told by Dr. Weir and Dr. Zelenka that there was nothing to be done. It was going to be about time and patience. Normally this wouldn't have fazed her. She was used to being patient. She was used to time passing in its set way, changing people and villages, taking what it wanted away and putting new things down when it felt like it. But in this case she had an aching desire for control. To demand that the Daedalus turn up immediately even though it was impossible, for the stargate to activate even though it was impossible, for the trip in a jumper to be a week long even though it was impossible.

She was trying to work out her aggression with weapons training. Ronon had volunteered to be her partner but he hadn't quite mastered the sticks yet. He was good but prone to rushing in head first and getting beaten by Teyla as a result. In that way he reminded her of Sheppard.

Ronon came at her, charging forward aggressively in the hope of beating her onto a submissive position that would allow her to be flung to the floor. He swung the two sticks efficiently catching her squarely on her forearm before she stepped back, turned, and hit him square on the backside. Then she caned him over the back of the thighs. Sheppard had tried that maneuver before and she'd hit him before. Many times. Unlike Sheppard, Ronon didn't go down and instead promptly recovered to a standing position, facing her with a wicked grin.

"You hit hard for a girl."

"I am glad you think so."

"No wonder Sheppard is always covered in bruises."

"The Colonel bruises easily."

Ronon let out a snort of amusement. "I don't think he bruises that easily."

"What are you suggesting? That I enjoy hurting the Colonel?"

"No, I was thinking you enjoy that you're capable of beating him. You were the Athosian's leader. You want to make sure Sheppard understands you're still a leader. That you're more than a match for him. I'm surprised he keeps coming back."

"I do not think that is the case."

They continued to circle each other as they talked. Ronon waiting for his opportunity to pounce all the while wearing his not-quite-smile.

"I know you want to rescue him bad Teyla, but it's not gonna to happen."

"You want to save him too. If you didn't, you wouldn't have protested so much in the briefing room."

"Yeah but I also know when to just wait a situation out. When I was a runner I knew that I was always going to have to cut my losses. Sometimes I could hole up on a planet and get a little respite but eventually the Wraith were gonna show up and it was time to leave. There was no use getting riled up about it. It was just time to leave. So I left."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, that Sheppard's smart and he's tough and we'll get there and he'll be fine because he thinks the same way. He'll endure because he has to."

Teyla held up her sticks, twirled them fast in a tight circle as a challenge.

"I hope you are right, Ronon."

"I'm always right."

They attacked each other again, fighting, retreating, dancing into arm's reach and out again, burning off their pent up energy.

((--))


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Rodney woke up and the cabin of the jumper was bathed in early morning sun and it occurred to him that he'd been asleep for a long time. It also occurred to him that he was supposed to be doing something else. Something like, oh, standing watch.

"God damn it!"

Panic immediately filled Rodney's idling brain and he tumbled off the bench still encased in his sleeping bag, inundated in visions of Sheppard being dragged off by vicious wildlife in the middle of the night, or being captured by Wraith and any other number of slightly impossible and vaguely illogical scenarios.

He rolled over on the floor, struggled to get himself out of his sleeping bag, forgot to put on his shoes and staggered out of the open hatch onto the sand, desperately looking for signs of his companion. If he'd died overnight, Rodney would kill him.

"Morning, Rodney!"

Sheppard was walking back towards him with a load of driftwood. He crossed over to a fire and dumped the wood beside it. Rodney wondered why he hadn't noticed the roaring fire until now.

"You were supposed to wake me!"

"Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. I figured you could do with the sleep and there wasn't much to watch out for in the end so I decided to keep myself busy."

Sheppard gestured around.

Rodney was impressed and slightly horrified. The over active LTC had obviously been working through the night. Hard.

A pile of wood was stacked carefully by one end of the jumper. The fire was large and sitting in a pit surrounded by rocks. Two logs had somehow been found, dragged across the sand and were beside the fire, ready to be used as seating. He looked around, noted a sizeable amount of digging had taken place further down the beach by some trees. A spare tarpaulin was anchored for some sort of cover from the branches. If it was hiding a latrine he was going to pitch a fit. He didn't care if he got chewed up by a T-Rex, or a seven foot version of a Naked Vole Rat, he was not using a hole in the ground. A man had his pride. If it came down to a battle between his self control and the call of nature, the call of nature was just going to have to lose.

To top off the freakish activity the pilot had even found time to start collecting branches, weaving them together into the barrier he'd been talking about.

McKay's gaze then settled on two medium sized, neatly gutted fish lying on a plastic bag. Clearly an uncontaminated and highly processed breakfast of _Chili and Macaroni_ MRE, made in the sanitized conditions of a food processing plant, was not to be.

"You have got to be kidding me," said Rodney. He was appalled at the camp site taking place without any aid from himself and appalled that he'd slept through it all. Or more to the point he'd been allowed to sleep through it all. Presumably Sheppard felt he was either too incompetent or too precious to do any of the hard work.

"Nope. I never kid in times like these," replied Sheppard with a smile.

"At precisely what insane early hours of the morning did you decide it would be a good time to fish?"

"About five, when I found some nylon wire on a reel in our stuff. The hook was a problem but I raided the medical kit and used one of the needles for stitching up wounds. Shone a torch and a bunch of fish seemed to be attracted to it."

"And the bait?"

"I took a small piece of power bar with me."

"That's our limited supply that you wouldn't let me touch!"

"It was from the second one _I_ didn't touch."

Rodney wasn't in the mood to admit that Sheppard was right. "Oh. Sorry. I forgot that starvation is a really great survival strategy."

He noticed that his friend didn't bother to reply. It was around that time, as he was building up to a tirade that he'd probably regret, he decided that standing around in his socks wasn't such a good idea. He went back to the jumper, laced himself into his stinking and crusted boots, put his jacket back on, ran his fingers through his hair, stowed his sleeping bag and went and turned off the heat. The day was marginally warmer and he could survive until nightfall. He headed outside, having had a chance to calm down.

When he came back out, Sheppard was - yet again - proving his resourcefulness. With a field shovel he carefully poked around in the edge of the blazing fire to haul back a flattish rock. He then placed a metal plate – the only one in their mess kit - on the rock and slipped on the fish. He pushed it back, closer to the flames. Rodney let himself ponder the intelligence of whatever dim witted human being had packed the jumper. The emergency mess kit consisted of one plate, one cup, one knife and a spoon, and yet they had four 9-millimetres, the P90, enough clips of ammo to start a private army, a case of C4 and a box of grenades.

Satisfied that the fish had started cooking, Sheppard turned his attentions to other matters. "We've got a long day. Gotta get some water back here and I wanted to make sure we have the barrier rigged up for tonight. Keep the heat in."

"And keep out any creatures that want to eat us?"

"Yes, and keep out any creatures that want to eat us. Although somehow, I'll think we'll be the ones doing the eating."

Rodney appraised Sheppard, checked out the dark circles under his eyes. He looked tired and so he should be considering he seemed to have gone without sleep for twenty-four hours. Rodney resented it. He resented that Sheppard didn't feel he was capable of just standing around for four hours or so, he resented that Sheppard had done all of this work without him and he damn well resented that Sheppard had done it without the need to close his eyes for an hour or two.

"Are you sure you don't need a nap?"

The man cooking fish and appearing to have settled in to his new lifestyle without any type of emotional crisis drawled out, "Naw, I'm good."

Rodney looked at the fire and the cooking fish and Sheppard busying himself with tending said fire and felt like he'd just fallen down the rabbit hole. He was back in high school being forced to attend a class camping trip in an effort to make him a 'more rounded' human being. He'd never been able to convince his parents or his teachers that there was absolutely no necessity to be well rounded when he was planning to spend life hunched over a computer terminal. But they'd forced him to go anyway, saying he'd enjoy it and he hadn't. Camping was terrible because that's where he'd met Todd Mills and Sheppard reminded him of Todd. A kid on the camp who attracted the girls, was completely capable of living the outdoor lifestyle, who was funny, smart and – what really irked Rodney – kind. Kind to Rodney. Todd watched out for him when Rodney was all gangly limbs and two left feet, told the other kids to quit laughing at him, was interested in what he had to say. It had driven Rodney crazy. He was used to being the brunt of jokes, of being picked on for being smart, and beaten up by the jocks. To be confronted with Todd Mills, an aberration in the high school clique phenomenon, had thrown off his well established sense of order. He was used to being alone. He wasn't used to having friends.

Yes. It was The Camping Trip all over again.

"Is there anything I can do?" He hoped Sheppard would send him on some routine chore. Anything to be able to escape the feeling of being completely and utter out of his depth.

"Not right now. We'll have breakfast first because I don't need you keeling over from a lack of food."

"Right. Protein. Yes, good choice." He strolled over to the log and sat down thinking that it was better than standing around looking as useless as he felt.

Sheppard tested the fish, made sure they weren't turning into charcoal and settled himself beside Rodney.

"I scouted around last night. I'm concerned that it's so damn quiet."

This was the sort of paranoia that Rodney usually indulged in but it seemed Sheppard was as spooked at he was, just hiding it better.

"Quiet? I thought quiet was good."

"Quiet as in, I didn't see a whole lot of wildlife around."

"So? You frightened them and they ran off."

Sheppard shrugged, checked the fish again. They were doing nicely, and Rodney was becoming increasing distracted by the smell of edible food.

"You're probably right."

"Of course I'm right. I'm always right." It was a joke. A small one but it was better than telling Sheppard to stop being paranoid.

They sat staring at the fire for a full minute, a full minute of silence and to Rodney it was awful because he could never stand those awkward pauses in conversation that represented a person's withdrawal, their disapproval, their dislike. Even though he feigned not caring, that he was arrogant and didn't really worry for other people's opinions it was covering up his desperate need to approval. Approval meant that people would talk to you, engage you in conversation, make you feel included and you could feel that yes, you weren't so bad after all.

Rodney forced himself to sit and keep looking at the fish and the fire and not start waffling for the sake of hearing a voice. Ultimately it was Sheppard who started the conversation again.

"Pity I didn't bring _War and Peace_ with me. I could have finished it."

"What page are you on anyway?"

"Twenty-two."

"Okay, so by my estimates that means you're reading around one page a month. I don't want to alarm you but you'll be retired long before you finish."

Sheppard scuffed the sand around with his left foot, making a non descript pattern. "Tell me about it. I looked at the limited space for personal items, panicked and tried to get the most bang for my buck. I didn't exactly have a lot of stuff in Antarctica but it wasn't like I couldn't get something if I wanted it. Going to another galaxy really screwed up the whole 'I'll just order it from Amazon and wait for the summer supply run' concept. So I went for a really big book, a football DVD, an i-Pod and my entire music collection rammed onto four CDs as backup."

"I wouldn't feel bad. I couldn't make the decision even if my life depended on it. I went to a Costco and bought a box of Reece's peanut butter cups and a box of Snickers. They were gone within three months. I ate them all. In between crises."

"I figured the next time we get to bring in items on the Daedalus, I'm getting seasons one through three of _24_."

"Why am I not surprised that you like _24_?"

"Why am I not surprised that you would bring a bulk box of Snickers with you as a reminder of Earth?"

Rodney smiled, shrugged, was pleased when Sheppard deemed it was time to eat and dragged the rock back towards them. The plate was too hot to touch. The fish sat there sizzling, basting away in their own juices. He could feel himself drooling.

The man in charge of their two man forced expedition used the spoon and the knife to slice off the flesh from one fish, squished it into their one cup and handed everything to Rodney.

He looked at it. "What are you going to eat with?"

"I'll use it after you," said Sheppard.

"Oh for pity's sake, that's just so gross I can't even begin to tell you how gross it is."

"I was planning to rinse it off in the sea so keep your panties on."

"Not even close to being hygienic."

"Have you got some cootie thing going you never told me about?"

"No, I do not have cooties. Saliva transmits meningitis for a start and God knows what else."

"You're telling me Beckett cleared you for duty while you had meningitis…"

Rodney felt himself getting flustered even though there was nothing to feel flustered about.

"I'm healthy thank-you-very-much."

"And I should be safe since I haven't kissed any alien chicks lately."

Sheppard was baiting him. That much was painfully obvious. Was this what their enforced camping trip was going to consist of? Sheppard teasing him at every opportunity? Rodney flashed back to puberty again and snarled. "Oh my GOD. Do you do this deliberately!"

His tormentor flashed him a grin. "Just eat your breakfast and then we can go for a hike."

Rodney didn't reply but hooked a piece of fish out of the cup with his fingers. Not because he didn't want to use the perfectly clean spoon but more because he knew that Sheppard would be using it and therein after, without the aid of some detergent and hot water and vigorous scrubbing of the spoon, he was never going to use another eating utensil until he made it back to Atlantis.

((--))

Colonel Caldwell was not a happy man. He had never been thrilled with his current job and he was even less thrilled when he couldn't even complete said job. After all, he wasn't exactly bragging to anyone that he was essentially the commander of a glorified supply ship, and he was completely silent on the fact that his supply ship was now out of commission.

It had started off routinely. Doing what they always did. Drop off supplies at Atlantis and helping out with any of their current problems. The problems tended towards being many and varied - such as their military commander turning into a giant bug, or one of their scientists blowing up five-sixths of a solar system. Then it was time to grab the data discs, the technical reports, the personnel logs, the AARs, the personal effects of expedition members who had died, the supply sheets for those comforting Class-1 essentials such as food, toilet paper, soap and shampoo, the Class-8 medical supply sheet from Dr. Beckett, and the many, many Class-6 requests for personal items before heading back to Earth. Back at SGC, he handed them over, and some lowly grunt in the Quartermaster Corps spent his day trying to locate DVDs for the early _Dr Who_ episodes ('William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton not John Pertwee or Tom Baker!" the note had demanded) Sea Monkey kits, footballs, a dozen Ding Dongs, a _Lord of the Rings_ chess set, and any other number of items someone had been spending six weeks dreaming about back on Atlantis. With only one personal item allowed per person, per supply run, Caldwell had initially wondered why they didn't choose more carefully. What happened to wanting a good book, or some music? It occurred to him that as the people stuck on Atlantis had realized the arrival of the Daedalus was a more or less guaranteed event, the novelty had worn off. It had taken on the air of a trip to the supermarket. A very long trip, but nothing out of the ordinary any more.

It was enough to make a hardened military man cry. Especially one who was a lifer.

The Daedalus had reloaded as usual, they had begun the journey out into deep space without any signs of trouble, and all seemed normal right up until they cleared the solar system and the hyperdrive engines shut down.

Hermiod had spent the three hour journey back to Earth on sublight engines muttering to himself in Asgard. Caldwell had been none too happy either. A broken ship meant unloading the cargo again and shifting the food supplies back into the refrigerator and freezer units. The quartermaster and ordinance crews would be bitching for weeks.

A day after their limping arrival General Landry had called him into a meeting to discuss the situation. The news wasn't good. The hyperdrive engines were going to take at least two weeks to fix and then another week to test.

Caldwell didn't like the news any more than Landry did. He might not have liked his job but he was military and he completed his mission and he did not like feeling that he was an REMF – otherwise known as a Rear-Echelon Mother Fucker.

"Sir, is there anyway to inform Atlantis not to expect the Daedalus? They're going to wonder what's happened and if I know some of the Atlantis personnel they're going to think the worst…"

Landry nodded, took a swig of half cold coffee while signing off on the swath of forms Harrigan had carted into the office. Fixing hyperdrive engines, it seemed, required lots of requests and signatures.

Caldwell wasn't a man prone to questioning his superiors, or their decisions but he had sometimes speculated just how they were billed for work on the Daedalus and how SGC paid for it.

Landry kept signing and replied, "Unfortunately I'm sure that's exactly what will happen. But until we get the engines fixed, there's nothing to be done. We're all just going to need some patience."

There wasn't much to say to that because Landry was right. Yelling at people wouldn't make the repairs happen any faster, especially in the case of Hermiod. He just had to sit tight and wait.

"Yes sir," said Caldwell.

He left the office, wondering if he wasn't now dwelling in that special hell of boredom and dissatisfaction reserved for the long ago captains of tramp freighters. Endlessly sailing the sea in squalor, hating the squalor, then finding themselves stranded and hating the stranding even more.

((--))

Sheppard had located three empty plastic jerry cans under the seats of the right bench. They were standard US military issue five-gallon containers in their usual standard color range of Forest Drab. Three empty plastic jerry cans meant fifteen gallons of water. More than enough to mean they would only have to make the journey to the river on a weekly basis – if they only used it for drinking. And Sheppard was more than happy with that. The less time they spent wandering around in unknown territory, the less time they would spend getting into trouble.

He was carrying two of the cans, Rodney was walking beside him, still harping on about the standard of the fish breakfast while carrying the other spare can. The fish had been tainted with a mud like taste and they had been bland, although Sheppard put the blandness down to the lack of a convenient salt shaker. After complaining about the breakfast he moved onto complaining about the fact that they didn't make Band-Aids like they used to because his had fallen off.

"We could have been killed," Rodney concluded by turning the conversation back towards the fish.

The scientist had become convinced that they should be more careful about eating any of the food on the planet because it might poison them.

"I mean look at fugu shushi. Seems perfectly fine but then _wham_ you're hit by tetrodotoxin and four hours later you're dead."

Sheppard tried to ignore the vague ache in his temples that signaled a headache. A headache bought on by lack of sleep, no wake up cup of coffee and a companion who just wouldn't shut up. He was also tense from the lack of life signs. He kept checking the detector but there was nothing except for the two blips of himself and Rodney and so about fifteen minutes into the trip he gave up and put it back into his vest pocket.

"Rodney, as far as I know fugu is made from the puffer fish. You know, that fish that puffs up and is covered in spikes. Spikes would be a really obvious signal from nature that trying to eat him is a bad idea."

"You're a biologist now?"

"No, but I used to talk to the biologists down in Antarctica."

"The point being…?"

"That apparently nature, nine times out of ten, likes to play fair with the poisoning and danger angle. Most poisonous animals advertise their toxicity."

"Except for the ones that like to camouflage themselves because they're using the venom to capture prey rather than avoid being prey."

"The fish we ate didn't look like they were doing either."

"Oh great, a man who talked to a biologist once is going to figure out whether something is safe to eat."

Sheppard felt his shoulders starting to sag. He kept telling himself that Rodney would adjust in a couple of days, that he didn't have the military training, that they'd been through similar situations on numerous occasions and in the end Rodney would come through.

He liked McKay. He really did. Just not when the scientist in question was whining like a business man at a Hilton who'd discovered he'd only been left one complimentary bottle of shampoo by the maid.

Luckily trudging their way through sand and then moving across the wet marshland was tough. It temporarily slowed Rodney down but then he just shifted the conversation to complaints about the river being so far away, blah blah blah.

Sheppard shut him out so that all his brain had to cope was constant and vague chatter, like only half listening to a radio station.

The ground got boggier, and soon they were sloshing their way through ankle deep mud, over root tendrils sticking up out of the ground, and long strings of lichen hanging from gnarled trees until they hit solid ground, followed by the edge of smooth flowing water.

Once again Sheppard noted that the area around them seemed unnaturally quiet. It was beginning to spook him because on a planet that had a breathable atmosphere, water and plant life, surely some type of animal life would have taken hold.

He held up his hand to signal Rodney to stop and then cautiously checked out their surroundings. It would be tough to flee any danger in this sort of terrain.

Rodney cleared his throat. "If you tell me we're turning around and heading back to the jumper, I'm going to kill you."

Sheppard lowered his hand, satisfied the coast was clear. "Seriously, if you tried to kill me I don't think it would take me too much effort to make you regret the move."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you shouldn't threaten to kill me."

"Fine. I promise not to threaten to kill you, even in jest."

They stood on the bank and Sheppard put one of the containers down on the ground, along with the P90. He gave the life signs detector to Rodney and pointed at the weapon.

"What's the rule about deadly fire power?"

"Don't touch the big bad gun without permission or unless a Wraith is fondling my chest," said Rodney with a distinctly surly tone.

Sheppard had more than few issues with Rodney handling the P90. Rodney was an average shooter but with the P90 able to fire 900 rounds a minute, he stood a chance of scoring direct hits just from the sheer volume of shots being fired. The problem was that while spraying everything with a light coating of bullets he would probably hit friendlies. Like Sheppard.

"You stay here. I'm going to fill this."

Rodney opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it and closed it again. Instead he concentrated on pointing the detector at the water.

Sheppard checked that he had his knife tucked into its holder, the gun on his holster ready to pull if he needed it and then cautiously waded into the river.

Shit, the water was ice cold but at least it shook him out of his fatigue.

He walked further, slowly and cautiously, making sure he didn't miss his footing on the rocks strewn along the bottom. He figured that when he was up to his knees, it would be easier to dunk the container into the water and let it fill. Unfortunately the river was not gently sloped but suddenly dropped and he was immediately up to his waist. It was only due to quick reflexes that he hadn't gone under completely. He called out to Rodney even before Rodney had a chance to panic. "I'm okay!"

"Are you sure?" Rodney looked like he was about to race into the freezing waters for a rescue attempt.

"Sure I'm sure but I might need some help getting back. Just wait there until I get this thing filled."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Now just stay there until I tell you otherwise."

That didn't seem to mollify his companion but at least he was obeying orders and not risking both of their lives.

He went back to his task at hand and pushed the buoyant container into the water, watching it fill as the air bubbles rushed out. He was interrupted about two-minutes later by a panicked shout from Rodney.

"Colonel!"

"What?"

"I think you need to get out of there."

He looked up, back to the shore and saw Rodney wearing an alarmed look on his face as he peered at the detector's screen. "There's a whole bunch of… uh… dots. Heading in your direction. Lots of dots."

Crap.

"From where?"

Rodney pointed at the spot where Sheppard stood in the water.

Sheppard got a good grip on the container and started trying to run himself back up the incline. He was getting zero traction and the water resistance made it twice as hard to move. It was at that point he felt something brush against his leg.

Double crap.

Instinctively he froze but the instinct was soon overcome with the uncomfortable and disconcerting sensation of more somethings trying to crawl their way up the legs of his pants.

"Shit!"

He redoubled his efforts but his grip on the water container was turning his escape into hard work. At the same time Rodney's desire to help overrode the command to stay put. He tucked the detector into a vest pocket and splashed into the river.

Sheppard watched Rodney run into the water to save him, and tried to fight down his growing panic. Panic was not a good thing. Panic would get you killed. But panic was the only emotion he felt as he flashed back to his encounter with the iratus bug. Especially since the things crawling around on his legs were also biting him. It hurt.

His determined plan to get out of the water was turning into a wild uncoordinated thrashing that wasn't getting him anywhere.

Rodney arrived just in time, reaching down and grabbing handfuls of vest. The fact that another person was within reach to help abruptly calmed him down. He watched Rodney brace himself in the knee deep water on the other side of the drop-off point.

"Let go of the container," shouted Rodney.

He shook his head. No way. It had their water in it. He may have been panicked before but common sense told him that they needed to zealously guard every item they had. Losing an item that allowed them to double how much water they carried was wrong. The pain in his legs was bad but his survival attitude asserted himself.

"No. We need it."

"It's too heavy. Let go and we can try and pick it up later."

"Rodney, the container's important."

"So are you. Now let go!"

Sheppard stubbornly clung to the handle. Rodney sized him up, pursed his lips. Then he bent down and rapped Sheppard across the knuckles. Hard.

"Mackay, what the hell are you doing!"

"Making you let go you stupid idiot."

Rodney whacked him again.

"Stop it!"

"Let go!"

He was hit again, and then the pain in his legs got worse and he realized he was possibly sacrificing his own life on the pretext of needing an item to possibly save his own life in the future. Okay, that had to be an example of irony. With a lot of reluctance he did as he'd been instructed. The container, full of water, bobbed in the river, sunk halfway down and seemed to stay put.

Rodney sighed with relief. "On my count, you start pushing up and I'll pull."

Sheppard nodded.

"One… Two… Three!"

Sheppard scrabbled his feet again, Rodney leaned back, pulling with all his might and between the two of them Sheppard cleared the incline, falling forward into the shallower water. Rodney went with him, falling onto his butt.

It was Rodney who recovered first, fumbling his way back to his feet, using Sheppard's vest to start yanking Sheppard into a sitting position then extending an arm to get Sheppard back on his feet before hauling him back to the edge of the river bank.

Sheppard doubled over, panting from the effort, shaking from the cold. On a more positive note, the pain in his legs was fading.

"Are you okay?"

He squinted up at the concerned face of Rodney.

"To be honest, I don't really know."

Nor did he want to. He had no desire to look at whatever had decided to attach themselves to his body.

Rodney didn't seem to know where to begin. He stared a few seconds at Sheppard's soaked trousers, making sure his eyes were focused down at the ankle level, and seemed to make a decision.

"Colonel, this is going to sound really inappropriate but I think you need to drop your pants."

"I'm not that sort of guy," said Sheppard trying for a feeble joke that might relieve some of the tension. Because really, he wasn't that sort of guy and guys just didn't stare at any other bits on any other guy unless they were drunk.

"Seriously, you're soaking wet and have God knows what feeding on you."

It was a poor choice of words because Sheppard's mind instantly latched onto the usual guilt ridden image of Sumner on his knees, the life being sucked out of him by the female Wraith caretaker, and Sumner's cloudy eyes pleading with Sheppard to help him out right before Sheppard delivered the kill shot to the ten-ring.

He was a soldier so he wasn't shy about losing his clothing if needed but denial was playing a bigger role than he cared to admit. Hesitantly he undid the belt, undid the button, unzipped and slid his pants down to his knees and forced himself to look at the alien creatures that had attached themselves to his legs.

Rodney was also looking in disgusted awe. "They look like some type of leech."

Leeches that had six little legs like grappling hooks, anchoring onto their new food source by digging into his flesh. As if their rotating scissor mouth parts weren't enough to keep them locked on.

"There are…well, there are, um, thirty of them. But that's just an estimate," continued Rodney.

At that point, Sheppard just thanked God for the invention of the boxer brief in the '90s. The cotton/lycra band around the legs had stopped the bastards from getting any higher.

"You know, this would be funny in difference circumstances," he said for something to say. Anything to distract him from the sight of brown squishy things attached to both of his legs, right the way up to mid-thigh.

Rodney just raised an eyebrow. "I don't see how this would be funny, ever."

"Well you know, standing out in the open, pants down around my ankles. That kind of funny."

"Must be soldier humor that I'm not familiar with so look at how I'm not laughing."

Rodney crouched down to peer intently at one of the leeches on Sheppard's right calf.

"Are you sure you're not in any pain?"

"Nope. Nothing."

"They must be injecting some sort of local anesthetic. It would stop whatever they're feeding on from trying to pull them off."

"I don't have any such problems."

Rodney nodded, delicately grasped the leech between forefinger and thumb, screwed up his face at the sensation of its slimy body and slowly began pulling. The body stretched like it was made of silly putty, the legs stayed put and it just didn't want to come off. In vengeance it dug its legs in harder.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No, just pull the damn thing off if you can."

"I'm not sure if this is such a good idea." Rodney continued to keep his grip on the blood sucking creature.

"Just pull it off." Sheppard didn't like the way it was grossly stretched out, clinging to him with determination. If they could get it off, at least he would know that unlike the iratus bug, he wasn't permanently bonded until death.

Rodney tugged some more before the little creature gave up. It promptly unhooked its mouth, shed its legs and Rodney was left with an ugly sack of jelly oozing Sheppard's blood over his right hand.

Sheppard looked down at his calf. Blood flowed freely and liberally from the neatly incised, rounded wound site. The six legs of the creature stuck out from his skin like black filaments of wire.

Rodney threw the leech to the ground, stood on it for good measure. The leech seemed to take being stomped on with aplomb. It took several attempts before the leech died. Having taken care of the leech, Rodney assessed the situation.

"Can you walk?"

"Yeah I think so…"

"We need to get back to the jumper. It's going to take forever to pull these damn things off and we should at least do it where it's warm."

Sheppard heartily agreed with that call. He hauled his soaking pants back up – it was never a pleasant experience to have to get back into wet clothing – and they began walking very slowly back to their camp site.

((--))


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

By the time they got back to the jumper, Rodney hadn't managed to warm up and Sheppard's teeth were chattering.

The bonfire that Sheppard had stoked that morning had died down but there were enough flames to get it swiftly back into life. Rodney shoved Sheppard into the jumper, quickly threw an armful of wood onto the fire and then followed inside. He debated about turning the heat back on but it was going to take time to warm up and at this stage the fire was probably just as effective. Instead he went for the med kit and threw it on the bench while Sheppard just stood there shivering and dripping on the jumper floor.

Rodney reached behind the CO and grabbed the sleeping bag that Sheppard had yet to use. Tossed it at him.

"Get out of your uniform and wrap yourself in this."

Sheppard unhooked his vest, and managed to start shucking the rest of his BDU while Rodney located a survival blanket and ripped it out of the plastic bag. He then tackled the med kit and checked the contents again. There were tweezers, gauze, iodine, tape, Band-Aids as well as a pair of latex gloves that Rodney didn't hesitate in snapping on because quite frankly he never wanted to touch another alien leech with his bare hands as long as he lived.

As Sheppard pulled off his t-shirt Rodney got a glimpse of even more squirming lengths of leech circling the lower half of Sheppard's torso like a living tattoo.

"Shit," he exclaimed on behalf of both of them.

That got Sheppard's attention and for the first time the LTC noticed that this legs weren't the only thing providing a convenient snack. Sheppard couldn't seem to find an appropriate response except to let out a groan of disgust and he doubled his efforts to strip down to his underwear.

Rodney noted disconcertingly that Sheppard was trying to his best to appear to be in control but he was about one step away from panicking. Rodney recognized the signs well. He also recognized the sign that his friend was teetering on the brink of hypothermia. The air temperature wasn't cold today but it wasn't exactly tropical. Perfectly fine with some layers of clothing but not so fine when cold, wet or half naked. He went over with the survival blanket, wrapped the metallic sheet around his friend's shoulders before placing the sleeping bag around him as a way to prevent any more loss of body heat.

Sheppard unlaced his soaking wet shoes and kicked them off before removing his socks. He let out a gasp. One leech had somehow managed to find its way into his left boot. It was attached to his big toe.

Somehow this one leech caused him more offence than all the other leeches put together.

"Get them off," he said in his best command tone of voice. To Rodney it seemed more like a plea than a command.

"I'll do my best," replied Rodney trying his best to be reassuring. He picked up the med kit and then led Sheppard out to the log by the fire and sat him down. "Where do you want me to start?"

"Anywhere," groaned Sheppard.

It was at times like these – not that there had been many – when Rodney sincerely wished he paid more attention to Carson and less time berating him about medicine being a voodoo science. As Ernest Rutherford had so tactlessly said, "Physics is the only real science. The rest are just stamp collecting". The human body refused to produce unambiguous results in the way that physics overwhelmingly said 'yes' or 'no' and in the way that physicists and mathematicians prized. Biology always had an acceptable variation on normal that Rodney found irritating even though he'd eventually been forced to acknowledge that despite it all, physicists didn't know everything and they weren't good at figuring out how to cure diseases. If Carson had been here Carson would have said something wise and pinpointed just the right course of action. Unfortunately Carson wasn't here so Rodney voted for pulling the leeches off as quickly as possible.

He started on the left leg getting rid of the one on the big toe first. He yanked it off and threw the bloated body into the fire. There was an audible pop as it swelled and burst. Then he picked up speed aiming to get rid of them swiftly rather than prolong the agony, more than aware that every time he pulled one off it was taking a piece of skin and a small chunk of flesh with it, leaving a circle of exposed sub dermis. Maybe, he thought, maybe they might have dropped off after feeding but then again when had they encountered anything in the Pegasus Galaxy that voluntarily gave up before, during, or after feeding?

He kept pulling and throwing, the sounds of exploding leeches like gunfire or popcorn depending on a person's mental disposition at the time. He kept count and finished the left leg by pulling off leech number twenty-five and flinging it into the flames.

Keeping up his frenetic pace he moved to the right leg and ignored the fact that the wounds bled freely for longer than he would have liked. The little bastards were obviously injecting anti-coagulant just like their Earth counterparts. He tried to remember where he'd pulled off the first leech, back at the river, and scouted around for the wound. Having located it, he sighed with relief when he found a clot beginning to form. One less thing he had to worry about. If Sheppard was stuck with wounds that wouldn't heal it would only be a matter of time before infection set in and killed him.

The right leg yielded a count of thirty. Rodney concentrated on breathing through his mouth to prevent himself from throwing up and tried to ignore the fact that blood coated both legs, rolling lazily down to the ankles before dripping slowly along Sheppard's instep and onto the sand. Sheppard was being stoic about the experience, trying to sit still, shut up and leave Rodney to concentrate on the task at hand. That didn't make Rodney any happier because Rodney had always regarded someone complaining bitterly as a great indicator of their state of health. People who complained and bitched weren't suffering too much and people who hardly complained at all were in pain or unconscious. Unfortunately that left him wondering whether Sheppard's silence was due pain or due to the sick fascination of watching leeches growing fat and sated on his own blood.

At least the blood wasn't leaking from a vein or an artery and that was about the only comforting thought Rodney had.

Both legs were now clear, except for the endless clusters of insect legs. He moved to the torso.

"Um, could you raise your arms for me?" He was being exceptionally polite and deferential – well, as polite as he could be for someone not trained in medicine or having any sort of bedside manner whatsoever. To raise his arms Sheppard had to let the survival blanket and sleeping bag fall away and Rodney hoped the heat from the fire would keep his body temperature stable enough to pull the remaining blood suckers off.

He applied himself with record speed to the leech circle, allowing himself to sit back and rest after the last one of the group of fifteen found itself being barbecued on top of the charcoal heap that had once been its buddies.

Sheppard had wrapped the reflective blanket around himself again then folded the sleeping bag over the top. He'd stopped shivering. That had to be a good sign, or at least Rodney hoped it was a good sign.

Opening up the med kit, Rodney took out the tweezers and braced his already throbbing back for scrunching up at an odd angle. There had to be a better way to do this because picking 390 individual segmented insect legs off the military commander of Atlantis was going to take forever. He sighed, figured he would start back at the beginning, down at the big toe, and work his way up from there.

He squinted, grabbed one of the hook structures, firmly grasped and then yanked much like he had with the main body of the leeches. He just hoped he was getting the remaining parts embedded in Sheppard's skin. Carson endlessly lectured them about the dangers of being bitten, stung or otherwise annoyed by alien insect populations but apart from the iratus bug, which was a really, really big bug, no one had taken much notice. Except for Rodney who spent his time smearing himself with DEET and lip balm before departing on any off world mission much to Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon's continual amusement.

"If you ever decided to give up being a scientist, you'll have a great future as a beautician."

Rodney blinked and looked up from his tweezing effort. The insect legs were obscured from the blood but Rodney didn't want to waste the iodine or gauze trying to clean up the mess twice. Not when he had a delicate stomach. He may have felt bad but Sheppard appeared to have perked up somewhat, now that he was leech free and the blood flow had slowed to a trickle.

Rodney decided that instead of complaining he would rise to the occasion and take the verbal bait. "Are you expecting me to be upset by the thought of being paid to pluck and shape the eyebrows of gorgeous women?"

Sheppard smiled slightly. Rodney prided himself on the fact that he was getting better and better at trading insults with Sheppard and starting to win. Practice with Sheppard meant he was also holding his own when stuck on Lorne's team and the marines played their favorite game of 'annoy the scientist'.

"I bet they're not all gorgeous," said Sheppard.

"True but don't beauticians get to do Brazilian waxes?"

Sheppard's eyebrow went up. "Touché, McKay."

"Yes, I know, shocking. The Great Geek, Dr. McKay knows these things."

"Just don't start saying that shit around the squads. You'll get them started and the conversation will end up in porno land in about two seconds flat."

"Porno land. Where is that exactly?" Rodney kept tweezing as he said it, wondering whether he should just keep going and to hell with his back, or take a break and let himself whine about his back.

"I hear it's out in the Indian Ocean. Like a secret military base. Known but unknown."

"Sounds like a great place for a vacation," said Rodney. Then he decided he could take it no longer. He stopped tweezing, stood up, arched his back slightly to work out the kinks.

"Sore back?" Sheppard asked. Not that it wasn't obvious.

"Yeah," replied Rodney because there wasn't a lot else to say. His back was aching and the immediate crisis seemed to have been averted and he wanted to have a break.

"Give me the tweezers. I'll keep going."

Rodney paused and thought it was a perfectly fine idea, because of course, the man was probably highly motivated to be rid of any evidence of his unscheduled swim in the river. Rodney didn't blame him one bit, and would have kept going… But for his back. He handed the tweezers off to Sheppard.

He arched his back again, and then bent over, mumbling, "Just give me a minute and I'll be fine."

"Uh huh," said Sheppard, clearly not believing him. Rodney watched as Sheppard concentrated on pulling some more insect legs out of his skin.

"Seriously. My back's just not up to this."

"You're starting to sound like Dr. Smith."

"I don't see any robots around here, or underage boys."

Sheppard snorted, but somehow didn't break his swiftly established tweezing routine. "As long as you don't start calling me a babbling booby, I'll be happy."

It was then that Rodney got a glimpse of Sheppard's body again and there was a dark halo of blood pooling around the band of the underwear, slowly beginning to congeal. He felt his heart seem to pause before beginning again with a resounding thud. Suddenly, despite all of his best efforts, he felt sick. He sat down on the log next to the happier Sheppard.

"You're not going to puke are you?"

Rodney shook his head, then thought maybe he should tell the truth because his stomach wasn't cast iron to begin with and he'd never been able to tolerate the sight or smell of blood. The only person he knew that was impervious was his lab partner Tracy who was odor-blind to certain scents. Unaffected by the aroma of blood she didn't mind the sight much either and she'd done her second degree in medicine. Rodney's crush had ended shortly after she got her doctorate in astrophysics and she'd gone off to do premed. He never did like overachieving show-offs who couldn't stick to one specialty, particularly when the overachieving show-off was smarter than him.

He took a deep breath. Sheppard was relying on him. He had to get his shit together and be dependable. He grabbed the tweezers back, got working again, finished off both legs in fifteen minutes, got the line of chitin out of Sheppard's back, and left Sheppard to tackle his stomach and pull out a nasty cluster from around his navel because Rodney's mind had moved to other matters.

Such as finding a way for Sheppard to clean up and heading back to the river and retrieving the water container. His mind settled upon the bucket, and it instantly occurred to him that perhaps the person who had packed the jumper wasn't an idiot after all. He removed it from under the bench seat and went down to the sea's edge, filling the bucket and bringing it back to sit beside the fire. He had no idea what the melt point was for stainless steel but putting it directly into the fire was probably not a good idea. He then went back to the jumper and grabbed one of Sheppard's wet and dirty socks and tossed it into the bucket, completing his brilliant idea that boiling the water would sterilize the water and the sock at the same time. He also remembered Carson's advice about getting stranded and how salt was a good way to clean wounds. This would allow Sheppard to use the sock as a washcloth before applying copious amounts of iodine, just to be on the safe side.

Hey, maybe he wasn't so bad at the whole survival thing. After all, he was definitely getting into the spirit of the situation. If only Sheppard didn't look so bemused by the sight of his sock being boiled in sea water.

"Here's what I think we should do…"

Sheppard raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything.

Rodney continued, "If you can take things from here, I want to go back and get the water container while I can. It's a one hour return trip maximum."

"Great plan. Did you miss the part where I got covered in leeches?"

"Yes, well, interestingly enough I know not to go anywhere near that particular area of river. I'm wading in, avoiding the drop, and maybe using a sturdy branch to fish the container closer to me. Then I'll just grab it and head back here."

"Did you just say 'sturdy branch'?"

"Yes. Did you just ask another question?"

"I'm pretty sure if you could hold your horses for an hour, I can go with you."

"Right. You're going to bandage yourself up, get back into your wet clothes, wet socks and wet boots and walk for an hour while I talk to you non-stop and you can do the solider thing and protect me from nasty wildlife and bad ass aliens."

"Did you just say 'bad ass'?"

"Cut that out! Seriously." Rodney was getting incredibly irritated with how lightly Sheppard seemed to be taking the situation now he was free of his uninvited guests.

"Okay, I'm sorry. Sometimes it's just too easy…" Sheppard looked down at his blood covered feet and wiggled his toes. "Look, I just don't want you out there wandering around by yourself."

"You said there wasn't any animal life."

"We didn't think there was anything in the river either."

"I think if there were bigger, non aquatic forms of life on this planet, we would have heard them by now. Or seen them."

"You've become disturbingly confident all of a sudden. I seem to remember you having an issue with wildlife sneaking into the jumper."

"Look, Colonel, you can't guard me every single second and I for one would like to feel as if I'm contributing." Rodney didn't add the rest of his sentence. The bit about Sheppard reminding him of Todd and wanting to be alone for an hour just to get his thoughts straight and not be forced to sit around and watch Sheppard scrape off his own dried blood.

Sheppard took his sweet time but a long last nodded. "Okay. You can go. But I want you to take the P90."

Rodney's mouth dropped open at that declaration. "You never let me touch the P90. The last time I picked it up, you smacked me over the back of the head." Rodney's indignation at being cuffed by Sheppard came back as if it had happened yesterday. Actually, it had been three weeks ago.

"That's because the P90 is more difficult to handle. Pull the trigger on it and you've killed everything standing around in your path."

"So that's a bad thing."

"Normally, for you, yes. But for now, no. It means if you get into trouble, pull the trigger, aim in the general direction of whatever's in your way and then run like hell back here."

"What are you going to use?"

"The hand guns. The grenades. My knife if bullets and explosives don't made a dent."

Rodney nodded, went back into the jumper and tentatively picked up the P90. It was lighter than he expected, even though he knew it mainly consisted of polymers. He had to admit to nervousness around the weapon and also a thrill of excitement. It was like getting to handle strong acids in his chemistry class for the first time. You could do a lot of cool reactions with acids. You could also burn a hole in your hand at the same time. Actually, come to think about it that was when he'd given up chemistry in favor of cosmology and astrophysics. He'd never been one for danger. Of any type. His brain was far too good at weighing up factors and calculating risk automatically and instinctively. In the 17th century he would have been the man funding the expeditions to the great unknown parts of the world, not the man in charge of the expedition, or even part of the expedition. While men were hacking their way through the South American undergrowth, dying of malaria and assorted tropical diseases, he would have been back in his home complaining bitterly to his friends that they were taking a jolly long time to fetch his requested plant specimens.

He took the weapon back to the waiting Sheppard who showed him through the basics. Sheppard gestured to the rotary selector below the trigger.

"S is for safe, 1 is for semiautomatic and A is for automatic. You just thumb it and you're good to go."

Rodney nodded, concentrating on the instructions.

"When you've got it set to A it's a two stage trigger. Pull it right back and it's an automatic, pull it half way and you can fire off small bursts. The recoil is not too bad so don't worry about bracing it too much."

Rodney frowned, taking it all in, concentrating. Now he had his chance he didn't want to get it wrong. That was the one thing he was always good at. His capacity to take in new information at the blink of an eye.

Having shown him the basics, Sheppard handed the weapon over.

"Clip it to the front of your vest, and remember, don't thumb it off S until you're sure you want to shoot. Okay?"

"Yes Dad. I'll have the car home by midnight."

"The whole sarcastic come back is usually my thing Rodney."

Rodney clutched the P90 trying to appear as if he was confident, instead of nervous and reluctant and a teeny bit scared.

"I guess you're a bad influence, Colonel."

The half naked man sitting on a log in front of a fire, coated in blood, laughed. "I've always wanted to be a bad influence on someone. I can cross another goal off my list."

Feeling not particularly brave, Rodney did as was instructed and clipped on the sub machine gun.

Kitted up and read to go, he turned and began to walk away. It was time to get it over with. He wondered why he did these things to himself. Get all confident and determined and then have second thoughts. Why couldn't he just be like Todd and Sheppard and all those other jock types who set their minds to a task, no matter how juvenile or pointless, and just got on with it without over analyzing the details?

He'd only managed to take about ten steps when Sheppard called out to him again.

"The container is going to be heavy when you fill it. Are you sure you're okay with trying to carry it back?"

He didn't bother to turn around because he knew if he turned around he'd change his mind and he'd be saying, yes, he'd wait on Sheppard to get more mobile, that it seemed perfectly okay if Sheppard decided to go on a mild hike while covered in oozing sores, that once more Rodney McKay had to be taken care of at any cost.

"Yes. I'm fine. I'm good. See you in an hour or so."

Then he began the hike to the river.

((--))

Dr. Elizabeth Weir had taken some time to adjust to her role as the civilian leader of Atlantis. It had taken time to adjust from the conciliatory approach of a diplomat to a more hardened woman who did what she needed to defend the city.

She decided that she was getting a little too hard in her approach of late because why else would she be officially listing Rodney and John as MIA?

Elizabeth looked up from her laptop and surveyed her always clean desk and stopped typing. She always efficiently did her allotted work for the day, never made messes. Everything in its place. Everything put away. A clean desk was the sign of an organized mind.

She was sick of being neat and efficient.

One part of her firmly believed that there was a good chance they were alive, that they'd come back. Months later, bruised and battered from wear and tear, but they'd roll off the Daedalus or through the stargate and she'd smile at them, make a welcome home speech and Atlantis would be back to the way it was. The other part of her, the more realistic part , told her that unless there was some sort of miracle it was entirely possible that Rodney and John were dead.

The leader part of her, the part that knew that there would be casualties on her watch, the part that begged the President for a shot at the assignment because she'd always been ambitious, knew that the people on Atlantis needed security and predictability. They needed to know that they had a lead scientist, and a military leader for Atlantis. Spending months in limbo not knowing what was happening just prolonged the agony and there was no way of knowing what had happened until the Daedalus completed a SAR mission.

The bottom line was that she was short of a Commander for Atlantis and a Team Lead for the scientists. As much as she wanted to keep hope alive she also knew that she'd eventually need replacements and unfortunately she knew that Caldwell would be one of them. She felt trapped. Damned if she did, damned if she didn't. Her behavior would be called into question by SGC if she didn't deal with the situation and her behavior would be called into question by the occupants of Atlantis if she did.

She held her finger over the mouse before she tagged her electronic signature to her request. Part of her knew that SGC would expect the report to be sent across in a data burst as soon as possible. The other part told her to wait.

((--))

He dreamed that night of a mission gone bad. He hadn't thought of it in a long time, having developed the much maligned but highly effective psychological skills of simply pushing an incident out of his mind and pretending to forget about it until he really did forget about it.

Like most zoomies he was an adrenaline junkie. He didn't exactly admit to enjoying a flight into the middle of hell because that was the sort of crazy talk that could get the wrong sort of attention. But on a late night, on his few off-duty days over a beer with his fellow pilots, they all talked about the same thing: the heightened reaction time, the sense of urgency, the speed, the need to get things done. That it was on their shoulders – a situation they didn't mind because there was something powerful about being that responsible.

Being a pilot in the middle of a war zone was just the thing for people who liked to saunter up to the edge, look over it, and give a one fingered salute to death.

His current assignment was to fly MEDEVAC missions, usually into hot LZs behind enemy lines. In the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom the enemy line was just about everywhere, mainly because in the rugged Afghanistan terrain it got a little hard to tell who owned what.

Afghanistan, like most theatre of operations, had shitty flying conditions. Power lines strung across power pylons that no one knew about, or hadn't bothered to pass along to the air force, treacherous terrain, mountains every damn where, and hellish weather that could melt paint in summer and freeze your spit as soon as it left your mouth in winter. It also had earthquakes. He preferred to be in the air when they happened. His mission took him, as it so often did, perilously close to South Waziristan, the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Where everyone was pretty sure Bin Laden and the Taliban were hanging out and anyone nursing a cause, grudge or homicidal tendencies were going through to get into Afghanistan.

So they crewed up the CH-46, he flew into the area, the frag destination taking them to a small village. The village was in the process of burning to the ground and the ground held a combination of wounded US soldiers, and wounded civilians. He didn't have to look far to see the civilians consisted of children. Three of them.

He really hated trying to transport children. With his helmet on, he shouldn't have been able to hear them screaming, except the sound bled over his crew's radios. He listened to the kids screaming in pain. Heard them screaming in terror when they were loaded. Screaming for their parents. They cried and cried and they could not be consoled. It broke his heart so much that he hated them for it and then he hated himself for hating kids whose only crime was standing in the open when an RPG hit the ground.

Shit.

He landed, and the four corpsmen on board grabbed the litters, got the hell out and started loading wounded as fast as they could. One of the corpsmen grabbed an injured child, forgoing the litter, and scrambled on board. He was pursued by the unhappy parents, who didn't see that their only son needed medical attention, just that he was being taken from his village. They tried grabbing him back.

The hillsides were crawling with grunts trying to find the last of the insurgents. The sounds of gunfire echoed around the area, as well as the sound of mortar fire. On top of that he'd just been radioed that another CH-46 was coming in to pick up any leftovers and he'd have to clear before it could land.

Amidst the controlled chaos his crew chief, sitting behind the .50 caliber machine gun, spotted some movement on a hillside that didn't appear to be generated by a guy in a US Army uniform but more by two guys bracing themselves over a boulder and clutching a 30-year old Soviet RPG-7.

"Sir, I think we need to move. We've got enemy at our nine."

That was all he needed. "Can you clear them?"

"Yes sir, I'm going to try."

The crew chief started firing at the hillside. This didn't deter the men one bit. Knowing Sheppard's luck they were probably mujahideen. They'd spent their teens and twenties fighting the Soviets and now the US had moved in they figured they'd wile away their forties by fighting someone else. In war, you always hoped the other guy blinked. The mujahideen never blinked, they just stared at you, right in the eyes, all the way to hell.

The day kept getting better and better.

Sheppard turned around to check on progress. He yelled over to the corpsmen trying to wrestle the kid back off his parents. "What the fuck is going on!"

"They won't let us take the kid on board, sir!"

He didn't have time for this. He didn't have time for niceties, or gently explaining the situation when none of them spoke the language above the basics. He had lives at stake.

"Get them out right fucking now! I don't care how you do it!"

The corpsman said, "Yes, sir." Then he held one arm around the boy and unholstered his sidearm. It was enough to get the mother wailing in alarm but they didn't have any choice. They backed off, the father grabbing the woman by her arm. They ran from the helicopter, making for cover.

His other corpsmen piled on board with one last litter and he was simultaneously lifting up and cycling the door closed and his crew chief's finger was permanently on the trigger of the machine gun and for some reason the two Afghanis were still standing and trying to aim their RPG in the general direction of the CH-46.

"Put some damn effort into your aim, Chief!"

"I'm trying! Those fuckers keep using the boulder for cover."

Sheppard was rapidly getting some air between the ground and feeling just a tiny bit like maybe, just maybe, they had Lady Luck on their side when he heard his Crew Chief – his name had been Mickey Adams – mutter "oh shit" and he instinctively held his breath while trying to make any kind of maneuver that might get them out of harm's way.

The warhead clipped into their back rotor and tail, exploded, sent the whole thing into a spin. They circled around, and dropped. Lady Luck helped out by giving their attackers lousy aim, the warhead spending most of its explosive capacity in other directions, and the CH-46 being fifty feet in the air.

It still didn't make the landing any easier.

The CH-46 came down promptly, pitched forward, the blades hit the ground, chomping grass and dirt before buckling, debris was flying everywhere, something sliced his arm, something else smacked him in the forehead, clunking him hard enough that the helmet seemed redundant, chaos smashed him and his copilot in three different directions at once. Dazed, bleeding, he took his helmet off because he thought it would clear his head. There was panicked yells from his men and the still conscious wounded and the kid - the kid that he'd just had snatched from his parents - was screaming like a banshee.

He managed to turn himself around in the pilot's seat and found out that the kid was howling because his would-be rescuer, the guy who had forced his parents out at gunpoint, was now a mangled body. The back of his CH-46 was a mess of wounded, dead and dying. There was so much blood he could have done some finger-painting with it, the back half of the helicopter was on fire and he wasn't sure how any of them were going to make out alive.

He turned his attention back to the wailing child and the child looked him straight in the eyes, opened his mouth and vomited. A black coil like a snake rolled out of his mouth, down to the ground where it writhed and then scuttled towards one of the men strapped into a litter. Sheppard opened his mouth to scream a warning and then-

He woke up abruptly with a startled intake of breath, half sitting up, heart pounding. He glanced over to the other bench to see if he'd managed to wake up Rodney. Two open eyes stared back at him so he knew that he hadn't gone unobserved.

That was the problem with being stuck in a small space with someone else. No privacy. They got to know the quirks.

((--))


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

"Are you okay?" Rodney shouted at him. He had to shout to be heard over the din of the rain beating against the hull of the jumper.

It had been raining hard the entire day. Sheppard and Rodney had stacked as much wood as possible into the front of the jumper so that it would be dry when they needed to use it. The fire had gone out in the middle of the day despite their attempts to nurse it through the downpour and Sheppard's makeshift attempts to shield the fire from the deluge had been pathetically unsuccessfully.

He glanced at his watch. Three in the afternoon. Fifteen-hundred Zulu to the military.

"Yeah, I'm okay," replied Sheppard because that was his standard response these days. McKay would pose the question, he would answer and skillfully side step the truth: he was not in the best shape. The wounds had eventually healed, his legs were now covered in shiny pink scars that looked like he'd been burnt multiple times with a nickel, but the scars were the least of his problems. He was plagued with vague and non threatening symptoms that did nothing but put him in a bad mood. Pounding headaches that came and went, frequent nausea that flared up at random times, muscles that ached in the morning until he'd had a chance to warm up and on some nights made it impossible to sleep. He didn't think it would kill him but damned if it wasn't making a shitty situation worse.

The military training in him refused to allow him to use the remaining ibuprofen they had left because it was for emergencies. He just wondered what perversely gloomy part of him thought things were going to get worse. And if they did get worse, how two measly ibuprofen were going to help.

Rodney glanced at his own watch.

"Nightmare? Or should I say daymare?"

Sheppard shrugged and ignored Rodney's terrible pun.

Rodney continued, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

Rodney didn't say anything to that. He just rolled over so that he faced the wall and seemed to be settling himself back down to sleep despite the noise outside.

They'd taken to napping due to boredom and the lack of energy resulting from a significant reduction in calories. A change in the season had seen the air temperature climb to more temperate levels. The change had also brought with it massive amounts of rain that had driven them to seek shelter in the jumper. Lying down and catching a couple of hours sleep in the afternoon made a sensible survival choice.

Thankful that Rodney wasn't going to pressure him into any more conversation, Sheppard tried closing his eyes again but it was hopeless. Now he was awake he would end up lying where he was and fitfully dozing and that translated into him wanting to get up and do something. Anything to try and distract himself from feeling so lousy.

Except of course that he couldn't because if he went outside at this moment he'd probably drown where he stood.

Rodney's voice rang out again. "I think I'm going to get some gauze from the med kit tomorrow and use it as earplugs. You thrash around when you're having a nightmare. It's damn noisy."

There was that McKay attempt at humor again.

"There is no way in hell you heard me over this racket."

"Keep telling yourself that…"

"Thanks, I will. By the way, news flash, you snore."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do. And you drool."

It wasn't delivered with any kindness. Sheppard found that his air force trained optimism, can-do attitude and ability to get along with anyone was draining out of him to reveal a hitherto unknown mean streak.

Their life had been pared back until it was reduced to trading insults with each other that had turned from good natured to barbed, trying to find enough to eat, and lately, trying to ignore their own pungent aroma wafting around them.

Sheppard turned over so he could face the wall because staring at the jumper's hull was better than staring at Rodney's butt. The padding on the benches meant they were reasonably comfortable but there wasn't much width and turning over was a delicate exercise in not rolling off the edge. Rodney had spent his first week falling onto the floor.

As he contemplated a tiny scratch on the hull he realized with guilt that he was beginning to dislike Rodney. Every time he looked at McKay, his brain conjured up heartless and semi-comic images of all the things that Rodney resembled. A Kewpie doll (formless, with minimal hair). The Pillsbury Dough Boy (rotund and squishy, although Rodney probably didn't giggle when poked in the stomach). The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man (large, grouchy, threatened New York with destruction – mild when compared with five-sixths of a solar system). The Michelin Man (bulky). Jimmy Neutron (huge IQ, not entirely practical). Bender the Robot (same personality). No matter how hard he tried to push the imagery down, it just kept bubbling to the surface.

He wanted to hand in his mission accountability card and be taken off the clock. No more worrying about Rodney, or even if they were going to get rescued. He just wanted to find a quiet place down by the river and watch the water flow.

The places his brain kept going were alarming him. He wondered why he wanted to hang out by the river when he wasn't exactly in love with the place after the leech incident.

The incident that had been five weeks ago. It wasn't a good way to start off their enforced vacation on a strange planet in the backwater of Pegasus Galaxy.

The first week had been bad, as he expected. He'd been out of action after the leech problem although Rodney had managed to pull off his first mission by himself and return safely with the container of water. A full hour over due but he'd returned, intact and uninjured for which Sheppard was eternally grateful. While waiting for Rodney's arrival he'd cleaned himself up, used copious amounts of gauze and tape to plug up the circular wounds, rinsed off his blood stained underwear, set his clothes out to dry, zipped himself into his sleeping bag and sat by the fire, clutching his Glock. Then he'd warmed up, boredom had set in and he'd occupied himself by completing the barricade for the rear of the jumper. It had been a dumb move, and he'd reopened some of the bite marks but it had kept his mind off worrying about Rodney.

Rodney had been gone for nearly two hours and just when he thought he'd have to go on a search and rescue mission, the scientist had staggered out onto the beach, sweating and bitching in a steady stream of bitchiness about how heavy the container was and it had been an idiotic idea to go, even if it was his own idea.

It turned out to be lucky for both of them that Rodney had made the effort on that day. The second day signaled the beginning of their bodies adjusting to the sudden change in diet, and for Rodney, the lack of coffee and sugar. Sheppard had been through it too many times to count so he continued gathering more firewood and exploring rock formations within sight of the jumper. He would have gone further if his legs weren't giving him grief - for some reason he'd had the added bonus of feeling like he'd just finished the New York marathon. At the time he'd dismissed it because he didn't think the physical damage was that bad – just a couple of dozen holes. He'd felt worse during basic training. So he ignored it and while he continued working outside, Rodney was prostrate, taking ibuprofen every four hours and pointing out all the various ways he was feeling so bad that it might actually be a symptom of a more serious illness.

Sheppard had realized that Rodney's blood sugar has bottomed out and his body was trying to find a way of stabilizing the insulin levels. As much as the man whined about hypoglycemia, Carson had taken pains to point out to both of them that he wasn't truly hypoglycemic because McKay wasn't a diabetic. Nor did he have cancer, liver failure or any other number of horrible diseases. However, he was a person that lived on sugar and coffee, and so any reduction in the load was going to give him a case of the shakes until his body got used to it.

"Stop being such a girl," said Sheppard sometime around seventeen-hundred when Rodney had touched his own forehead for the tenth time and moaned about having a fever. Then he'd insisted Sheppard do it.

Sheppard had refused and said, "Why don't you just use the thermometer in the med kit like a normal hypochondriac?"

Rodney had actually seemed hurt by the remark but Sheppard had pretended he'd never said the remark in the first place. He tried to remain calm, he tried to dampen down his growing irritation. Despite being covered in holes he'd continued to catch fish and tried to determine what plants, if any, were edible on top of his own irritating headache. Rodney, of course, had taken great pains to point out that he was allergic to citrus and so couldn't take part in any of the plant tasting. Sheppard had gamely performed the taste testing and then the gagging and spitting. Any sympathy he'd felt for Rodney had departed at the end of week one.

The problem was that although Rodney had recovered, Sheppard had not. Rodney's energy levels may have been low but he tried his best to accomplish the tasks that Sheppard set and his spirits were occasionally buoyed by the Friday night treat of half a power bar or, the latest, an MRE.

Sheppard tried, as usual, to do most of the work but knew he was losing a battle he didn't fully understand. It was only a matter of time before Rodney would have to shoulder the responsibility for both of them and Sheppard wasn't entirely sure he liked the idea.

He tried to shake himself from his glum mood by listing the things that had gone right.

They'd managed to get the barrier mounted into the hatch space. Rodney hadn't been impressed when he'd arrived back from the water run to find that Sheppard hadn't bothered with resting but they'd both been happy when it had upped the air temperature in the jumper by five degrees. The barrier was a crisscross of branches woven together, the holes plugged with evergreen twigs and leaves and fastened with rope. They'd arranged it so they could lay it flat across the jumper door during the day and then with some more rope and some skilful tying, they could lift it up at night.

They kept catching fish so they had food. He'd even managed to find some edible seaweed. Not great but could be swallowed when desperate for variety. They weren't exactly living it up but they could survive. It had been harder to counteract the long hours of tedium. There was only so much fishing, hole digging, fire stoking, water collecting and repairing of the hatch barrier that could take place. Normally Sheppard would have filled in the time by exploring but that would mean taking Rodney with him and listening to Rodney complain or leaving Rodney behind and feeling guilty.

He looked at the face of his watch again. Three thirty in the afternoon.

So there he was, lying in the back of the jumper, not thirsty but definitely hungry, not cold but definitely dirty. His mind latched onto listing all of the things that he wished he had but didn't. He wanted clean clothes, a decent meal, a shower, his own bed, his guitar, the view from his quarters, the smell from the cafeteria when they cooked pot roast, watching football on TV and popcorn. He wanted to spar with Teyla, run with Ronon, go on a mission to a world where they left after breakfast and got back in time for dinner. He wanted a steady supply of analgesics and - possibly for the first time in his life - wanted a checkup from Carson.

Abruptly, the sounds of nature trying to hammer her way through the sides of the jumper stopped.

He slowly sat up, tossed off the sleeping bag, put on his mud caked shoes and untied the hatch covering to get a look at the latest set of damage to their surroundings.

The pit containing the fire was now a swimming pool. The sand was scored with rivulets of water running towards the sea. On the positive side, he'd rigged a water collection system using plastic stretched out into a hole and anchored around the edge with rocks. He'd also left out their ever dependable bucket. With the amount of rain they'd been getting it had cut down on the need to go back to the river. He went down to start scooping the water into the containers and found the action oddly soothing.

Rodney had roused himself and wandered outside. He loudly sighed.

"Great. Another day, another round with the monsoon season."

"It's not monsoon season," shot back Sheppard while setting the bucket carefully out of the way so as not to spill its contents.

"You don't know that. I'm pretty sure you don't have a degree in meteorology and therefore you don't know anything about the meteorological conditions of this planet."

Sheppard picked up the field shovel, moved off to another area around the other side of the jumper to start digging out another pit for the new fire. He resisted the urge to hit Rodney with it.

"Doesn't the monsoon have to involve high summer heat before it hits?"

"I don't know. Unlike you I admit to knowing very little about the weather."

"Do you think we've had stifling air temperatures before it rained McKay?"

"No."

"Well, there you go then. "

Sheppard turned his back to the man and started digging a hole. He'd become really good at digging holes as he hadn't dug so many of them since survival training. Pits for the fire, holes for the new latrines, holes for collecting water. An excuse to dig a new hole would at least take his mind off the various aches and pains running around his body.

He could feel Rodney standing behind him, presumably with his arms crossed. He'd been doing that a lot lately. Another trait that was beginning to drive Sheppard slowly crazy.

"You're not digging a hole just for the sake of it, are you?"

He straightened up and turned back to his personal pain-in-the-ass. The pain-in-the-ass that looked about as crappy as he felt. Rodney's jacket and t-shirt were starched with dirt, his pants were being kept up by some wiring they'd pulled from a jumper console in frustration, his hair was sticking up compliments of about five weeks of grease and he had a beard that was well on the way to transforming him into a Mountain Man fashion statement. Sheppard figured he looked just as bad and he was also experiencing the same problem in the pants department. They'd both started shedding weight rapidly on their new All Fish All the Time Diet leading to an enhanced roominess in their clothing. It struck him that it wasn't fair to continue to think of Rodney as a vaguely unfit scientist since he definitely wasn't carrying any extra weight but his imagination just wouldn't allow him to view McKay as skinny.

Between the hunger and the dirt, he found the dirt irritated him more on this particular day. It wasn't like he was unaccustomed to it – hell, being dirty in a war zone was de rigueur. He just disliked living in squalor surrounded by hints of technology that had let them down. Besides, they'd both acquired skins sores and rashes. No matter how many valiant attempts they made to keep themselves clean there was only so much they could do with sea water, boiled sea water, or sea water and sand. It got the top layer of dirt off and some of the smell but that was it. The same went for their clothes.

"No, I am not digging a hole just for the sake of it. In fact I would prefer it, if just for once, you dug the hole."

Rodney uncrossed his arms and stepped forward. "Fine. I will. I'm perfectly capable of digging a hole and I will dig the hole and maybe that will stop you giving me evil looks for not doing my full share."

Sheppard rolled his eyeballs and held out the shovel to Rodney. "Oh, excuse me Mr. Genius for trying to keep you from keeling over from low blood sugar, or allergies, or whatever the hell else you think you have wrong with you."

Rodney wrenched the shovel from Sheppard's hands, harder than intended. Sheppard narrowed his eyes. He had another headache brewing and his tolerance level was at an all time low.

"Are you implying I'm making my low blood sugar up!" Rodney was indignant.

"I'm sure it's real. In your head. Or maybe you've just adjusted to not stuffing your face all day."

Rodney seemed too enraged at that latest insult to answer immediately. He turned around and picked up where Sheppard had left off, throwing sand around with the vigor of a meerkat digging a burrow. It pissed Sheppard off even more and disturbingly, he could feel himself losing his temper. Losing his temper equated with losing control and in his current condition losing control just might translate into Rodney getting hurt.

"Great! Dig the hole. Then you can light the freaking fire and catch some fish!" Sheppard made an impulsive decision to get some space and stomped off in the opposite direction.

"Where are you going!"

"Away!"

"Away where!"

"Away. Into the forest. Where it's quiet!"

"Screw you!"

Sheppard stopped his walking so he could turn back and faced Rodney. "Fantastic come back, McKay. Don't tell me your giant brain is at a loss for words - my God what a tragedy for mankind that would be."

To his surprise Rodney lifted his middle finger and gave a clear, non verbal indication of just what he thought of Sheppard right now.

Sheppard returned the gesture and then continued his walk off to anywhere. Anywhere that Rodney wasn't.

((--))

It had been six weeks and no Daedalus. The rumors around Atlantis were flying thick and fast and had quickly escalated from postulating that there were problems with the hyperdrive to postulating that Earth had been invaded by the Goa'uld. Who said scientists were lacking in imagination?

Elizabeth had pulled Lorne into her office to formulate a plan for quelling the increasing absurdity of the rumors and to try and get the expedition teams back on task.

"Ma'am, if you don't mind me saying so, part of this is down to Sheppard and McKay's disappearance."

No matter how many times she told Lorne to call her Elizabeth, he refused. It made her feel like she was old. Or his mother.

"You're going to need to give me a little more than that, Major."

"People keep hoping that the Colonel and McKay will get rescued. To do that we need the Daedalus. The longer the Daedalus doesn't turn up, the less chance they have. Or at least, that's what people are thinking."

"I'm aware of that, Major."

"Yes, and the longer the uncertainty goes on, the weirder it gets."

"I know that."

"Which is why you requested the replacements."

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "You know about that?"

"I'm the military commander of Atlantis by default, remember? I had to provide the secondary authorizations."

She knew that as well, but she'd forgotten. These things happened when Sheppard had been here but John hadn't been interested in the contents of the communiqués, or other paperwork. He was usually too busy griping about the AARs he'd been forced to write.

Whereas John had taken to a posting in another galaxy with style, thrilled to be out of range of the traditional chain of command on Earth, Lorne was very much the military career man. To a much greater degree than his former CO Lorne liked the chain of command. He wasn't the sort of man to authorize a request without reading the authorization and the contents first.

"What are you intentions, Major Lorne?"

He held up his hands in a gesture of appeasing her.

"No intentions, Ma'am. I'm just doing my job."

"Let me phrase that another way. Do you have any opinions about my actions?"

Lorne considered her for a moment formulating his reply. That was another aspect that was different. Lorne tended to pause more.

"Ma'am, my opinion is that you're doing the right thing. Because you don't have any other choice."

"That was my conclusion."

"It's a tough position to be in. I'm glad it isn't me."

"Unfortunately it still leaves us in the same predicament. We've always been prone to gossip, but this is out of control."

"True, but on a positive side at least it's not gossip about McKay."

"People used to gossip about McKay?"

"Sure. Everyone used to trade stories about who he'd crossed or upset. People are sad that he's gone and at the same time, they're embarrassed because they're relieved that they're getting a break. Helps to explain why everyone's going nuts."

"Oh."

"Yeah, no one wants to admit to it."

"I don't blame them." Hell, she hadn't seen that coming. She knew Rodney unintentionally berated and bullied far too many people to win any popularity contests but she also didn't want to admit that she'd ignored his behavior because he kept Atlantis going and saved their butts on more than one occasion.

"What about John?"

"The Colonel - let's just say the legend stories are growing. Don't be surprised if by next week a friend of a friend swears that he saved an old Athosian lady and some cats from a fire."

She sighed. "At this rate I'm going to schedule everyone with Kate."

"It still leaves us with a problem. Do you want to send the request in the next data stream or wait some more?"

"I was actually planning to temporarily lose them."

Lorne snorted and shook his head. "Fat chance, Ma'am. The network administrator would have found backups and downloaded them back to the LAN before you'd had a chance to hit delete. And they'd have an audit trail to prove it."

"So you're saying I should get it over with?"

"No, I'm saying if you need to temporarily lose the file, get Zelenka to hide it for you. The man's got private files spread over three servers. Apparently he's paranoid someone will delete his work and he doesn't trust the backup process."

"I'll take that under advisement."

She smiled at him and thought, maybe she could convince SGC to make Lorne her 2IC instead, even if he didn't want the job. She could work with him; he certainly had a sense of humor… She stopped and suddenly a deep sense of remorse flooded her. Mentally she was moving on. She was coping.

That wasn't right.

((--))

Steven Caldwell was mentally comparing being controlled by a Goa'uld to being forced to sit in an office and fill out paperwork. At least the Goa'uld didn't like doing anything not immediately beneficial and half the time his consciousness had been so suppressed by the symbiot's control, he'd been unaware for weeks at a time.

He was just signing his fiftieth requisition for stationery when General Landry entered with Hermiod. For a change he looked happy and Hermiod was excited, and an excited Asgard was a rare event.

"Good news?" asked Caldwell, trying not to laugh.

"Hermiod says that the hyperdrive problem has been resolved."

"Indeed," added Hermiod.

Caldwell grinned at Hermiod and a smile from Caldwell was so rare that it startled both Hermiod and Landry. "That's definitely good news, Hermiod. Thanks."

Landry appraised Caldwell. "Looking forward to getting back into space, Colonel?"

"Yes I am, sir." And after so many weeks stuck in his office chair, Caldwell actually meant it.

((--))

Rodney sat on the log near the newly rebuilt fire and kept his view on his watch. The numbers were ticking down. He'd programmed the timer to count down in seconds so he could watch them move rapidly before they took away another minute from the total, and then another hour and then another day. It was a distraction from the unending misery, the unending tedium and from Sheppard.

He kept looking at the numbers and they were counting lower and lower and they were almost there.

He finished eating another fish. He didn't taste them any more. His body had adjusted to mostly protein and not much else. Nearly all of the plants Sheppard had found so far were inedible, the bitter taste warning of possible toxins, and no matter how hungry Rodney was, he couldn't force down more than two mouthfuls of seaweed.

His watch started beeping and he looked up at the sky, hoping for a miracle. It was irrational but he didn't care. He really, really wanted this to be over.

The beeping caught Sheppard's attention at long last. He'd been sitting against the log, wearing a frown and simply gazing at his boots. He'd been doing that a lot and it concerned Rodney. Actually, it had moved way past concern and into anxiety but Rodney discovered there were only so many times he could ask, "Are you okay?" He'd tried to get Sheppard to admit that something was wrong but the man stubbornly refused to let his façade of competence slip. Then again Rodney had reflected that even if Sheppard owned up to being sick there was nothing Rodney could do. Maybe that was why the pilot refused to acknowledge the problem. If they didn't acknowledge it, it didn't exist and Rodney could remain in state of blissful semi-ignorance.

Rodney had never been more aware of his dependence on Sheppard at this point in time and he wasn't in love with the concept.

His mind flashed back to Todd, and the camping trip, and Todd trying to keep Rodney's morale up as they tramped over some God awful forest track. Todd was trying to be supportive but it was humiliating because the camp instructor had made Todd stick with Rodney and in the end Rodney could do nothing but bite the hand that was trying to help him.

"Stop patronizing me you asshole."

After those words, it had been the last time Todd had willingly held a conversation with Rodney.

The beeping kept going, Rodney kept standing, looking desperately into the sky for something. A glint of metal or light. Something. God. Anything. Please.

The noise had managed to get Sheppard's attention.

"Why's your watch beeping?" He asked the question in the same irritated tone he'd been using for a week. It seemed everything Rodney did aggravated Sheppard.

Rodney didn't bother to hide his depression. "I set it to signal when the Daedalus was due to arrive."

Sheppard snorted. "Like that's ever going to happen."

Rodney took a deep breath and tried to form a simple sentence that didn't contain any sarcasm. He'd been practicing that skill in abundance of late - ever since his last outburst had sent Sheppard off into the forest for the afternoon. McKay had discovered that he didn't like being alone. Not like this. Not by himself in the middle of nowhere surrounded by silence and the unknown. Kate Heightmeyer had told him he kept pushing people away because he didn't want to get hurt but underneath it all he was fighting with the contradictory impulse for approval and that meant wanting to be around people. He'd scoffed at her and then asked about the brand of cereal that had included a free degree. When Sheppard had left him behind it had taken an hour for his attitude to go from bluster to meekness. The situation of being alone had given him an attitude adjustment. One that said flashing around rude hand gestures to the only other human being on the planet was a bad idea.

"Aren't we supposed to stay positive? Or something?"

"Yeah. Right. If you say so."

Rodney turned his attention back to the sky again. Just for once couldn't they both get a break? The watch was still beeping. With a sigh he turned it off, cancelled the alarm, and did not set the timer again. They'd been stranded for forty-two days. Time for the Daedalus to get to Atlantis. Time to get to them.

Sheppard seemed to notice Rodney's melancholy at long last and actually tried to offer some comfort.

"Look, I wouldn't worry. The Daedalus is like a bus. It's mostly on time. Not always. You should give it a few days."

"That makes sense."

Sheppard put a hand to his head, rubbed at the temples. This also troubled Rodney. He'd noticed this gesture more than once and it seemed to coincide with Sheppard's increasing moodiness.

"Are you okay?"

"Just another headache in a long line of headaches."

Okay, it was bad. Really bad. Because Sheppard acknowledging that he had a headache meant that if Rodney had the same headache Rodney would be begging Carson to knock him out, just to get away from the pain.

He risked an opening gambit and broached the obvious subject to hand. "I could get you some ibuprofen from the jumper."

Sheppard shook his head, seemed to definitely regret the action. "No. We're getting low and we might need them for something more serious than a slight headache."

"Knowing you it's not a slight headache, it's a migraine."

"Leave it, McKay. I'll be fine."

"Sure. Now you've got a medical degree. I don't remember seeing you in any of my gifted kid classes."

Sheppard didn't stop rubbing his temples. "That's because when you were sitting inside making scale models of the solar system, I was out getting bullied like normal children."

"You got bullied?"

"You try starting at a new school every year of your life. Luckily around aged nine I got the hang of school politics and a mean right hook."

Rodney wasn't sure what had caused Sheppard to reveal a sudden tidbit from his personal life. Sheppard didn't do personal. If he hadn't known better he could have sworn the man hadn't had a life before Atlantis. About the only thing he knew was that he liked football, Ferris wheels, played a guitar, was a fantastic pilot and was doggedly trying to finish _War and Peace_. That wasn't a life. It was a back story for secondary character in a cop movie.

He tentatively tried to keep the conversation going.

"Why did you move so much?"

Sheppard had closed his eyes.

"Army brat. My father was a lifer and into career advancement. He took postings wherever he could get them. Sometimes my Mom and me were stuck on base while he was overseas, sometimes we went overseas and sometimes we went to places in the US that seemed like we were in another country anyway." He opened his eyes again to look at Rodney.

Rodney thought he looked exhausted.

"What about you? What's the childhood of a boy genius like?"

"Not that great when competing with a sister who's a smarter genius."

"You have a sister?"

"Jeannie. Huge potential, incredible mind. I was constantly trying to keep up with her."

"There's more than one McKay out there? Should I be scared?"

"Relax. She got distracted by boys at fifteen and it was all down hill from there. She's married now with three kids. Her 99.8th percentile IQ is being used to change diapers and clean up baby vomit."

"Jealous?"

"Not likely. I think that when it comes to solving the mysteries of the universe versus spawning, spawning loses."

"Spawning? Could you be any less romantic?"

"What else should I call it? It's simply passing genetic code onto progeny. Of course, it would be a cruel blow to human kind if I didn't have children but there's no guarantee that my brilliance would be passed on. For a start I'd have to find a woman with a suitably high IQ because intelligence is passed down on the X chromosome. There just aren't that many women out there who are on the same level as me and cute. Except for Samantha Carter of course."

"With that attitude I can't believe you gave me shit for being attracted to Chaya."

"Chaya was a whole different matter."

Sheppard didn't get a chance to reply as they heard a sound. An animal sound. It was a huffed grunt, a roar that sounded like it was coming from a stag, or a bull.

Both of them startled.

Rodney posed the obvious question. "What was that?"

Suddenly his fears of being attacked by large animals with overly developed canines didn't seem so absurd.

"Dinner," said Sheppard with a dash of enthusiasm. He somehow got himself standing up, took a deep breath, seemed to take a moment to motivate himself, and then ran to the jumper.

Rodney ran after him and watched in awe as the man grabbed the Glock, shouldered on his vest, tucked in the life signs detector, put on an empty pack and clipped on the P90. Rodney's brain tried to keep up with events.

"You're planning on killing it?"

Sheppard headed down the ramp with haste. Rodney couldn't figure out how he could keep going.

"Actually I'm planning on killing it, gutting it, skinning it and eating it. Maybe in that order. Maybe not."

This was the one part of the survival course that had remained theoretical for Rodney. Oh sure, the group that he'd been with – all civilians – had been appropriately serious and grim during the discussion on how to trap animals and as humanely as possible dispatch them for dinner, but underneath it all Rodney liked that fact that when he ate a burger, it didn't resemble something that had a face.

He didn't have time to offer up any doubts over the enterprise because Sheppard was off and running and Rodney's brain insisted that he needed to follow and make sure Sheppard didn't keel over and die. As an added bonus Rodney's stomach insisted that as squeamish as he was, the evening's meal just might involve a steak dinner. The steak dinner won.

In a wonderful show of bravado, Rodney grabbed the other Glock and charged after Sheppard.

((--))


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

He was running and his head was throbbing in time with his footsteps but damned if he was going to stop now with a potential food source so close. He didn't care if it turned out to be an alien version of a crocodile, or a giant land dwelling maggot. He was going to kill it and roast it because if he got some decent food maybe his headache would quit.

He was a soldier and he knew they could continue to survive for another month or two on the subsistence diet and they could force themselves to keep working until the end, but with the Daedalus not turning up, it seemed prudent to try and find some other sources of food. Nibbling on half a power bar once a week wasn't making an impact nutritionally.

Being able to catch and kill one animal would boost their life expectancy.

Luckily the roaring was continual and the life signs detector was lighting up like a Christmas tree. There wasn't just one animal out there. There were lots of animals. He stopped and showed the screen to Rodney.

"Check this out."

Rodney looked at the screen, bewildered but also formulating his own theory as to the sudden influx of life. "Maybe they're all migratory? That would explain why they've turned up."

"Yeah, maybe the rains were a trigger."

It was as good as theory as any but theories took a backseat to the immediate task at hand. Food.

Sheppard slowed down as the dots on the screen got closer and checked for cover. A strange plant that looked like grass had sprung up over night from the edge of the sand dunes back into the forest. It was tall, the tops flecked with purple. He gestured for Rodney to get down lower so they wouldn't be spotted just as several dozen large herbivores broke from the cover of the trees and into the newly created field.

They looked like a cross between bison and moose. Barrel-chested, short strong legs, shaggy coat, large horns being held aloft on thick skulls. They had elongated snouts that reminded him of camels. They were definitely glad to see the grass and they didn't pay any attention to the two humans standing next to them.

"They don't see us as a threat," said Rodney.

"That's not going to last long," said Sheppard aiming his P90 and trying to figure out a good place to hit one of the bison creatures. He wanted to drop it instantly, not to have to chase it down while it bled out. The head looked heavily armored from the horns and the thickness of the bone around the eye ridge. He could try for a shot but the P90 was about breadth rather than finesse. The chest and neck also looked large, and he'd have to hope that the bullets penetrated to the heart or the jugular vein. The only solution he could come up with was to fire enough bullets and make sure that any running away was temporary and short.

Having picked a plan of action, he practiced his movements with the P90 for a few seconds, aiming through the sight, sweeping across the bison's body from the neck, down to the chest, across the legs and back.

The herd suddenly and collectively tensed, as if they sensed what was coming.

"Rodney, I don't know what they'll do when I start shooting, so get out of the way."

Sheppard didn't bother to check if Rodney had done what he was told. His headache had throttled up a notch and every time his heart beat, there was a corresponding answering throbbing pulse of pain in his right temple and behind his right eye.

He ignored it, tried to ignore the fact that his vision was blurring and concentrated on his target. He breathed out, held his finger on the trigger and when he was certain of his hit, began his attack on the bison closest to him.

The gunfire shattered the forest's peace, nearly shattered his own head. He dropped the weapon, letting it swing from the clip, fighting the urge to throw up.

The bison creature had a brief moment to lift its own head, let out a bellow, try to run, and drop to the ground in a heap thirty seconds later. The rest of the herd, confused, responding to their own instincts, simultaneously crowded together into a swirling mass and turned as one to face their attacker.

That would be Sheppard.

Sheppard didn't move. If he ran, he figured they would pursue him. Besides, he didn't know if he was in any condition to out distance a bunch of pissed off alien ruminants.

He stood and stared. They stood and stared. The one in front, the one with the bigger horns and an attitude that just screamed testosterone, pawed one hoof on the ground.

Where the hell was Rodney?

A hand took him by the upper arm.

"Colonel, this would be a great time to back away slooowwwllly," whispered a voice. At least one of them was having a bout of common sense.

Sheppard did as he was told and put one foot behind him and slowly inched backwards. The lead male of the herd lowered his head. It was going to charge and Sheppard didn't want to run.

Then they all heard another sound. A yowl, the kind cats made when they were fighting in the backyard.

The herd reacted instantly by taking off at a run, doing an abrupt about face and turning back into the shelter of the forest.

The sound of very big kitty cats continued and Sheppard had yet to do anything with their kill.

"Son of a bitch!" Sheppard yelled in frustration and then regretted it. He winced, put a hand to his head - an action not unnoticed by the ever vigilant Rodney.

"You're definitely not okay."

"Actually I feel like crap but I don't think this is the time to worry about it."

On the edge of the tree line they caught a glimpse of a creature that slunk low to the ground, tawny fur, yellow glinting eyes and big, big teeth.

Sheppard took off the backpack and unsheathed his knife. "I didn't go through all of this so that some free loading scavenger could get the reward." He gestured to Rodney. "You might want to get your Glock out and cover me."

Rodney unholstered his weapon, aimed it at nothing in particular. His aiming technique could only be described as 1970s TV show aiming.

"You're not in _Charlie's Angels_ Rodney. Point it towards the ground and away from me."

They crossed the short distance to the carcass, every step telling Sheppard that if he kept going, his head would explode. Kneeling beside the body, he noted the pool of blood seeping into the ground, the way the hooves were tangled with each other as the creature had skidded into the dirt.

He took his knife and considered where to start. They wanted food, and the hide could prove useful. The bones were a strong, shapeable material and might be handy but they could collect them after any scavengers had picked them clean. He spared a glance in the direction of the forest. Two or three of the cat creatures, bearing a scary resemblance to saber tooth tigers, hung out on the edge of the tree line sniffing cautiously. They weren't ready to come over yet, but they'd gather their courage sooner rather than later.

Plunging his knife into the carcass he started at the belly, slicing as efficiently as he could in an attempt to get one half of the hide removed. He curved around the rump, over the spine, back to the neck, cut around the legs. Then he used the knife to loosen the hide from the rump while he pulled and ripped.

Rodney stumbled back and looked like he was going to puke.

"This is not the time to wimp out on me," growled Sheppard.

"I'm not wimping, I'm just… ugh."

Rodney stopped speaking as the hide peeled off, revealing an anatomical lesson of fat and muscle tissue. Sheppard hastily rolled up the bloody pelt and put it to one side.

"Keep your eyes on those lions or whatever they are. I don't want to be their entrée."

"Don't worry, neither do I," replied Rodney, keeping his Glock and eyes pointed in the direction of the big cats. Clearly anything was better than observing the butchering process taking place in front of him.

Sheppard flashed back to survival training. They needed protein but the more valuable component of the kill at this point in time was the fat. Fat was more versatile as it had multiple uses and it added a lot more calories to the diet. Thankfully the beast had a good layer of fat on it, almost like blubber, presumably from wherever it had been grazing before.

He sliced off as much as he could, stuffing the bottom of the pack, then started cutting out large chunks of muscle from the rump and stuffing that on top of the yellow fat. He wished he had time to get to the internal organs but he'd just have to make do with what was in easy reach.

"Uh, I think they might be wanting to come over here."

Sheppard looked up from his task, saw the cats starting to saunter over, and hurried himself along. He sliced out another large chunk, the size of a roast, managed to get it into the pack and for good measure, sliced off the last of the flank and held it out to Rodney.

"What do you want me to do with that?" Rodney couldn't have looked any more appalled.

"Carry it. The pack's full and I don't think there's going to be anything left by the time our friends get through. Grab the pelt while you're at it."

Rodney grimly took possession of the bloodied prize, looked at a loss for what he was going to do with a slab of meat and then gave up and slung it over his arm. He did as he was told and grabbed the rolled up hide. Sheppard stood up, regretted it. He had to braced himself as the world seemed to spin for a few short seconds. He didn't have to lean down for the backpack. Rodney picked it up.

"You want me to carry this?" Rodney offered a way for Sheppard to get some relief but Sheppard felt he should refuse. For a start he was sure the pack was going to leak and so far Rodney was only minimally covered in blood. Unlike Sheppard.

He took the offered pack, slung it over his shoulder, felt the pulpy bulk resting against his shoulder blades.

"Let's go," he said and started walking. Rodney covered him, making sure the cats weren't in pursuit.

It turned out the felines were only interested in the remains and once they had cleared the area, the cats bounded in and greedily began ripping the dead alien bison apart.

((--))

The walk back to camp was dire. Sheppard was sweating so much that his t-shirt was soaked and although it was warm, and the backpack was full, Rodney wasn't sure he should be sweating as much as he was. The sweating and the dark circles under Sheppard's eyes were offset by the blood and gore covering his hands, arms, and his clothing.

As an added bonus Rodney had noticed that about fifteen minutes ago, blood was seeping out of the bottom of the pack and running down the back of Sheppard's pants.

It was horrifically gross; he could smell the coppery tinge filling the air, mixing with body odor and rank sweat. However, the entire exercise was all in the aid of a decent meal, so Rodney took to biting the inside of his lip. Anything to distract him from his overwhelming urge to start talking. His usual response to anxiety.

The lip biting worked because the minor pain focused him.

He tried again to take the pack and give the Colonel a break from his duties as mule but he was shrugged away. Short of punching the man and taking it by force there was little he could do.

They continued to slog towards the jumper and the trip seemed to take forever and when Rodney saw the familiar shape, he wanted to yell with joy but stopped himself, worried at what his yelling and screaming would do to Sheppard.

As they walked the last few meters, Sheppard seemed to grind to a halt, like a wind up toy. He staggered to their still smoldering fire, let the pack fall and collapsed in a heap on the sand.

Rodney did not like collapsing. Especially not from the guy who was the only other company on the planet and the only thing keeping him from losing it completely.

He went to his knees, got a hand on the huddled figure, and rolled him onto his back.

"Colonel! Colonel Sheppard! John!"

Two unfocused eyes stared back at him. "Don't shout, McKay. It hurts my head."

"What's wrong?"

"Bison's cousins are tap dancing all over my skull and you look weird." Sheppard closed his eyes.

Rodney didn't know what to do with that statement. Carson would have known. He would have been able to diagnose anything from that statement. Instead, Rodney patted Sheppard on the shoulder, and rushed back to the jumper. He dug through the med kit, found they were down to their last foil package of ibuprofen. He popped two out, grabbed a water bottle, the survival blanket and came back to where Sheppard still remained on the sand.

Two white tablets didn't seem to be much of a cure at this point, but they were probably better than nothing. He offered them to Sheppard but Sheppard ignored him.

"No. Save them for later when I'm really sick. "

Rodney snorted in disgust. "You have got to be kidding me." He felt sick himself. Sick at the constant displays of blustering machismo that Sheppard seemed to think proved that he cared about Rodney and Atlantis.

Without waiting for any further argument, Rodney hauled Sheppard into a sitting position and then hauled him backwards so that he leaned against the log. Then he unscrewed the water bottle, and shoved the pills into Sheppard's mouth.

"So help me, if you spit those out I'll just jam them back in - even if they're covered in sand."

Thankfully, no ibuprofen made a reappearance and Sheppard took the offered water, gulping a few mouthfuls to wash the pills down before closing his eyes.

Rodney sat back on his heels, trying to assess the situation. The situation was this: Sheppard looked like he was half dead and they had a backpack full of raw meat, a stinking pelt and the slab he'd dropped on a rock by the fire when they'd arrived. Just another wonderful day in their lives as castaways on a planet that hadn't even interested the Ancients.

First things first he supposed. Get Sheppard cleaned up, into a sleeping bag and hope like hell whatever was making him sick went away. Then he'd cook some of the meat. And that, he figured, would take him through to nightfall.

Leaving Sheppard propped up, he filled up the ever handy stainless steel bucket and set it down into the hot ash and low flame. Then he went back into the jumper for the pair of socks they'd been using as de-facto wash cloths, tossed them into the bucket as he waited for the water to warm up. At the same time he pitched some wood into the fire to keep it going and to start raising the temperature so that he could cook.

As he stoked the fire and poked around in the ashes, an idea flitted through his mind. It had been awhile since that had happened as up until now the facts stuffed into his head hadn't been of much use in keeping them alive. This was one though. A basic chemistry experiment his father had helped him with when he was ten. His brain cast around for the word he had learned. Saponification. Fatty acid meets alkali and that meant soap making. Ashes plus fat, plus boiling equaled soap. It wouldn't be like modern soap but it would lather and it would clean. Okay, the process wasn't that simple, but with a bit of luck he was sure he could come up with something.

For the first time in weeks he felt enthusiasm and he felt himself focusing. Looking at the muck covered Sheppard it was a pity that he couldn't make it now, but in a couple of days - yeah, morale just might get an enormous boost.

He brought his mind back to the more immediate problems to hand and dipped a finger into the bucket. It felt warm to the touch, so he carefully removed it and set it beside Sheppard. Then he began unlacing Sheppard's boots.

The foot he was holding reflectively pulled away.

"Whatcherdoing..." It was a mumble, barely audible. Sheppard was either half asleep or half unconscious, Rodney wasn't sure which.

"I'm getting you cleaned up and putting you to bed."

The man attempted to laugh but then stopped because it clearly hurt. "You gotta stop taking my clothes off. People will talk."

"Don't worry, you'll be unzipping yourself and your underwear stays on. I'm not going anywhere near that region."

There was no reply. Sheppard was slumped tiredly against the log, eyes closed, a frown on his forehead and lips gone to a thin line of pain.

Rodney shrugged, finished unlacing the boot, pulled it off and set it to one side. Pulled of a sock and put it into the boot. Did the same for the other foot. It indicated just how sick Sheppard was that he wasn't up to protesting when Rodney started in earnest.

He pulled the t-shirt up, felt that it was sodden and heavy with blood. Sheppard managed some feeble help by lifting his arms. The t-shirt left a trail of dark red as Rodney pulled it off and threw it to one side. As a courtesy and to stop the Colonel getting chilled, he wrapped the foil lined sheet around Sheppard's shoulders in a repeat of the leech incident.

Yet again, Sheppard looked like a truck had run over him, then backed up and run over him again.

Out of habit, Rodney looked at his watch.

Where the hell was the Daedalus?

((--))

Zelenka looked back at the pilot's console in the jumper and felt incredibly pleased with himself. He'd done it, he was sure he'd done it and in record time due to the lack of a certain scientist calling him names. Names like Fumbles McStupid. Fumbles McStupid was a stupid name in itself – it sounded like the name of a toy someone would get in a Happy Meal.

Curse the man. He missed McKay and yet he didn't miss him. He liked him, absence definitely making the heart grow fonder, but he dreaded getting him back. Without McKay he'd wound up as the temporary lead and the entire team had been able to wind back a notch under the more relaxed attitude of Zelenka. Even Kavanaugh had stopped his insistent whining.

He was still admiring his handiwork when Weir, Lorne and Beckett joined him.

Zelenka gestured to the console with an expansive sweep of his hand. If nothing else this proved he was a genius. Maybe even a bigger genius than McKay.

"Here is what will be happening. Dr. Beckett will activate the console because he has the A.T.A gene and then that primes the remote control. Then I will be putting in coordinates and onboard computer take over and kaboom jumper begins jumping. Three months later Sheppard and Mckay are 'být v sedmém nebi'."

Three faces looked blankly at him.

"Oh. How you say…? To be in seventh heaven?"

Elizabeth didn't seem to be smiling at his brilliance.

"How do we know this is going to work?"

"Ultimately we do not. But I am confident that it will arrive at its destination. I have programmed it so that it scans for human life and lands as close as it can. From there I hope that Colonel Sheppard is able to pilot the jumper back."

Lorne filled her in on the rest of the plan. "We're loading it with as many supplies as we can manage for the return trip, modifying the jumper to include a living space. It's going to be lean in the last two weeks but they should be okay."

"Jumper's water and heating systems means they won't be too uncomfortable," Zelenka continued.

"I've been supervising with the modifications and ensuring there's a good medical supply on board. Hopefully if anything's wrong antibiotics and whatever else I can load up is going to help. Rodney and Sheppard have both gone through basic first aid courses so…" Beckett stopped and looked at Elizabeth. She didn't seem happy.

He tried to cheer her up. "You know, it's a long shot but it might just work."

"True. But I'm not sure I want to see what they're going to be like after more than six months away from Atlantis or after being cooped up together in a jumper."

Beckett sighed. He knew exactly what she meant. "Sheppard's mentally tough and he'll make sure Rodney gets through. I'm not going to gloss over the implications but it's better than not having them back at all."

She gave him a small smile, acknowledging that much at least.

"Okay gentlemen, I'll leave you to your work. Let me know when you're ready to launch."

((--))

Someone was shaking his shoulder and it was pissing him off. Especially since it wasn't helping the splitting headache and the nausea.

He moaned as he tried to open his eyes and the light assaulted him. He didn't like daylight, really didn't. It made his head throb again. He disliked the smell even more. It smelt like something was cooking and not a good something either.

A face fuzzily swam into view and he tried to focus but didn't have any luck. So he closed his eyes again.

"Are you awake?" The voice that asked him the question was too loud.

"Leave me alone."

"I'll leave you alone when you take some more ibuprofen and drink some water."

Sheppard didn't want to open his eyes. It would hurt. He asked a question instead. "How long?"

"Yesterday, last night, most of today. You've been in and out."

"Great."

He slung an arm over his eyes, blocking out any vestiges of daylight, winced because moving his arm hurt. Everything hurt. He felt like he'd pulled all the muscles in his shoulders.

"I know you're photosensitive but I need you to take these."

He cracked open his eyelids as little as possible, got another fuzzy and indistinct look at a blob that was probably McKay.

He felt the tablets being pressed into his hand and Rodney hauling him into a half sitting position. He didn't hesitate to take the pills, as well as the proffered bottle, drank half the contents. He hadn't realized he was so thirsty.

Those two actions wore him out and he slumped back. The fuzzy blob known as Rodney McKay draped something across his eyes. It instantly blocked out most of the light.

"Those had better not be my socks," he mumbled.

"No, I cobbled together something out of the supplies. It's an empty MRE packet from the last ever binge session. I cut it to shape and edged it with duct tape. It doesn't sit too well but it's better than nothing."

He would have laughed if he'd had the strength and it didn't hurt. Rodney had taken his frequent lectures on 'waste not, want not' to heart.

Rodney stuck the thermometer in his ear to get a reading. He squirmed back.

"Stop moving around."

He didn't have much choice. He was on his usual berth in the jumper and pulling back had just pushed him into the hull.

There was a 'hmmmm' as the thermometer was taken out again.

"You sound like Carson."

"You still have a temperature. It's forty degrees."

"That had better be Celsius."

"One-hundred and four for the only non metric country left on Earth."

"That explains why I feel terrible."

"Yeah, well… Do you need a bathroom break?"

Sheppard recalled that thankfully he'd managed that task by himself. Barely. While doubled over with an aching back and double vision and the right side of his head due to fall off, but he'd managed it. For this he was thankful because although McKay was being extremely helpful, there was only so much help he was ever going to cope with.

"No," he said, insulted.

"You should probably go back to sleep then."

He would have except someone was now fondling his armpits causing him more pain.

"McKay, please leave me the fuck alone."

"Sorry. I, uh, noticed it when I was getting you into the sleeping bag earlier. The lymph nodes in your arms are swollen."

It didn't bode well because the last thing he remembered about symptoms involving swollen armpits was its association with plague.

"I've got plague," he said sounding as delirious as he felt.

"You haven't got plague. If it was plague you'd be dead. So shut up and go back to sleep."

Wasn't he the one usually telling McKay to shut up? Their roles seemed to have swapped when he wasn't paying attention. He would have fretted about this strange turn of events some more but he hadn't wanted to wake up in the first place. Sleep sounded like a far better idea. Now if he could just get rid of the smell that kept wafting into the jumper.

"Rodney, you're a lousy cook…"

"Oh. That. Hey, you're going to love it when you get better."

Sheppard didn't reply because the desire to sleep, and escape the hurt pervading his body over whelmed the desire to throw up from the smell.

((--))

It seemed that Atlantis was currently suffering under some curse. How it had originated nobody knew but everyone was in agreement. It was a curse.

They'd been so proud of themselves for figuring out how to get a jumper to fly remotely. They stood in the control room and watched Zelenka begin the procedure. Teyla had smiled, confessing that it felt good that they were executing a rescue plan at long last. Ronon seemed bemused by the concept but even he had leant forward with an air of expectation as the last chevron had been encoded and the wormhole had roared into life.

Zelenka began one of his greatest moments. He activated the remote. They watched as the craft descended from the hanger bay, hovered as it lined up with the stargate and then, in another second, it was through the horizon and gone.

They left the wormhole open to monitor telemetry. The jumper popped out the other side. Safe and sound. Right up until it flew into the rogue asteroid that any human pilot would have seen and avoided.

Everyone turned and looked at Zelenka.

"What! I am pretty definitely certain I programmed a collision avoidance routine."

Ronon didn't move but he did fix Zelenka in his sights. Or the Stare of Death as the scientists liked to call it.

"I swear to you we ran hundreds of simulations. Hundreds."

The Satedan stepped closer, Zelenka stepped back. Ronon seemed to be considering whether to deck Zelenka before changing his mind and stalking out of the room.

"I am sure that you made every effort Dr. Zelenka," said Teyla. She too was hiding her bitter disappointment at such an astoundingly bad failure.

There was nothing more to be said really. They left to go back to their duties.

Dr. Radek Zelenka stood in the control room for a long time, hunched over a laptop muttering to himself.

He never did find the collision avoidance routine even though he remembered writing it. That was when the curse rumors started.

((--))

Rodney was trying to figure out the specific gravity of lye. He'd managed through trial and error and a lot of hard work to use the tough reeds from the sand dunes as a filter. He'd collected branches, rigged them across the hole Sheppard had dug to collect rain water, then spread the reeds across the branches. Then he'd heaped ash and charcoal over the grass and slowly poured water over them. He'd had to repeat the process for hours on end before transferring the brown colored liquid back to the stainless steel bucket to concentrate it. He had vague recollections about floating an object in the lye to judge if it was the right concentration but didn't know what he was going to use. He was just going to have to hope for the best.

His hard work had resulted in filling up half of an empty water container.

After that he'd set about rendering down the fat, including the grease he'd collected from cooking the bison meat. He also wanted to try drying the meat as it would last longer but wasn't sure his method of preservation would be successful. He'd worked off wafer thin slices with Sheppard's knife and placed them on the warm rocks next to the fire. With any luck it would slowly dehydrate them rather than cook them.

The smell that was making Sheppard feel sick came from the process of rendering. Fat was boiling in the ever handy stainless steel bucket and Rodney concentrated on skimming off anything bubbling around that shouldn't be included in soap, such as bits of skin, hair or flesh. He wasn't in love with the skimming process because ever time he scooped, he had to gag.

Finally, the fat seemed to be as pure as he could manage and he'd set the bucket back to cool off. The fat would congeal, float to the top and anything left in the water he could throw away. After he'd managed that step, it just left combining the two ingredients. That would be the tricky part because he had no way of knowing whether he had the mix right.

He shooed away a fly before picking up a piece of cooled meat and chewing on it. Barbecued bison creature had turned out to be tasty and he had turned out to be less fussy as the stranding wore on. For example, he'd just brushed off a fly and was still eating.

He picked up another chunk, cut it down into smaller pieces and placed it in their battered tin cup and went inside the jumper in the hopes of feeding some to Sheppard. The man hadn't eaten anything in three days. Neither of them could afford not to eat. He wished he could give him something else, but they were down to the last two power bars, and the MREs had gone. Two measly power bars didn't seem like much of a backup but they stubbornly clung to the mutual delusion that in an emergency situation the power bars would give them some leeway.

On the positive side, Sheppard seemed healthier. His temperature had dropped to a slightly less toasty thirty-nine degrees, he didn't seem to hate daylight so much. In a world with only basic first aid and no access to Carson Beckett, that seemed like a radical improvement.

He'd tucked a full water bottle beside Sheppard's head so that he could drink as required. That seemed to have worked as it was nearly empty.

"Colonel?"

He waited to see if he got a response and tried not to show his delight at the fact that Sheppard actually opened his eyes.

The first thing out of Sheppard's mouth was a blunt statement. "I feel like crap."

"Define 'crap'. Does the term crap means it's better or worse than yesterday?"

Sheppard closed his eyes again, and slowly rolled over in what looked like an attempt to ease the pain in his back but resulted in a position that resembled the bison creature he'd killed.

"Better than yesterday but not by much. The headache has eased off a little. I don't feel sick any more. Everything else is kind of the same."

"Do you want some ibuprofen?"

"No. I don't want to keep using up the supplies."

McKay was secretly pleased at his refusal. He'd gone through most of the packet trying to ease Sheppard's discomfort and he didn't want to admit that they were down to only two white tablets. He was pretty sure that he'd been wrong to swallow them like candy when he was suffering through his caffeine withdrawal but he didn't want to have to admit that because right at this moment his innocent self involvement in his own mild pain was having a major impact on a friend who needed them more. Just another innocent social miscalculation for McKay to add to his big list of miscalculations. Why the rules of behavior had to be so hard he would never understand.

"If you won't take the analgesic, would you at least try and eat?"

Sheppard seemed to be waking up, his eyes focusing more on McKay and less on some undefined spot on the jumper's hull.

"Depends what it is."

"Barbecued bison. And when I say barbecue I mean lightly coated in charcoal as opposed to coated in a tangy mouth watering sauce."

The mention of food seemed to grip Sheppard's attention. A hand came out from beneath the sleeping bag.

Sheppard looked like he was going to drool. "Thanks for mentioning the sauce Mckay. Now I'm imagining spare ribs when I just know I'm going to be disappointed."

Rodney tried not to laugh and handed Sheppard a chunk of meat. Sheppard tentatively took the bite size piece and stuck it in his mouth. Attempted to chew and then stopped. Looked simultaneously amazed and annoyed.

"I can't believe it hurts to chew."

"I can get a power bar if you want. It might be easier."

He shook his heads, gnawing on the meat with the grim determination of a seagull trying to stuff an oversized fish down its throat.

"No, this is fine."

He managed to chew some more, swallowed, washed it down with a slug of water from the bottle. The entire process seemed to have worn him out. McKay looked at the pathetically sick, dirt encrusted, greasy haired, scraggly bearded man before him and decided that it would be a good time to spring the news about the soap. He had wanted to keep the soap a surprise but he was no good at keeping secrets or surprises and he thought the news might cheer Sheppard up. He'd always been the type of kid who, unable to contain his excitement, would proceed to blab about the plans for an Aunt's surprise fortieth party, or the baby shower, or whatever social occasion was due to be celebrated.

"I'm making soap!" He blurted it out and Sheppard, not privy to the thought processes that Rodney had taken to get to the statement, could only look at him with a puzzled expression.

"I'm really pleased for you," said Sheppard with a tone reserved for crazy people.

"It's true. I've been working on it for days. I'm brewing up the final concoction in another couple of hours. Tomorrow, with any luck, you, me and all of our clothing will be sparkling clean."

That managed to get a smile. "That would be the best news we've had in a long time. I suppose you're insufferably pleased with yourself?"

Rodney nodded with enthusiasm. "Absolutely. Totally insufferable."

Sheppard didn't stop smiling but he did close his eyes again. "My underwear thanks you, McKay," he mumbled. Then he dropped back to sleep.

Rodney observed the still form for a moment, making sure the Colonel was asleep and not dead and then turned on his heel, almost skipping back to the fire.

It was the first time he'd felt even a remote bit of happiness since landing on the planet. Come to think of it, it was the first time he'd been happy in a while.

((--))


	7. Chapter 7

_Any medical mistakes in this chapter are all mine._

**Chapter Seven**

Sometimes life on Atlantis was just like life in any other city on Earth. People got up, they showered, got dressed, ate a piece of toast for breakfast, cleaned their teeth, combed their hair, downed a cup of coffee and struggled to the office. At the end of their day they went home, slumped into a chair, and sometimes - just to break the monotony - tried to do whatever they could to provide some modicum of excitement. On Earth people went to a movie, or the theater, or a night club, or a bar, or out for dinner.

In Atlantis the occasionally exciting event usually turned out to be hordes of life sucking aliens trying to take over the city. Or in this case, the arrival of a ship that everyone thought they were never going to see again.

It was an early Christmas. They could restock. Enjoy their trinkets. The delay in the Daedalus' arrival had reminded them of just how isolated they'd been in that first year and how easily it could happen again.

"Don't worry Dr. Weir, I'll be personally overseeing the rescue mission."

Steven Caldwell sat opposite Elizabeth Weir having been briefed on the latest crisis to hit the city. Caldwell overseeing the mission was a given, and it was a given that if Caldwell found the body of John Sheppard, he'd automatically assume command of Atlantis. He could barely admit to himself that when he'd been learned of the MIA situation, he'd actually felt a small trill of joy at the possibility that he'd be getting the job that he felt he deserved.

For once in her life, Weir actually looked grateful that he'd turned up.

"I look forward to your input, Colonel Caldwell. I've put together a list of essential members for the mission."

She handed over her list in a way that suggested they actually enjoyed working together.

He scanned the list.

"Are you sure you want to send your Chief MO?"

"Carson insisted."

"If there's a medical emergency on Atlantis, he'd be better here. My medical team is more than capable."

"He tells me he has more than enough staff to take over and cope in his absence."

"I'm not sure about Ronon, or Teyla."

"They can both provide you with valuable strategic planning."

"That's what my marines are for."

"You have a problem with them?"

"I don't have a problem with them per se, I just have a problem with their background."

"You mean, that they're not from Earth."

"I mean that they're not Earth military."

"So you have a problem with their allegiances? We've gone through that. Several times."

The conversation summed up why Caldwell wanted command of Atlantis. He did not want to have continual arguments with a civilian and baring any howls of protest from SGC, the first item on his agenda would be ensuring that when he gave a command, the civilian leader of Atlantis would be forced to shut up.

He watched as Weir paused, her game face on, presumably considering if she had any tricks she could use to force him to take Ronon and Teyla. Caldwell was pleased to see a slight twitch in the corner of her mouth. It indicated that she knew she had nothing.

Still, it was not the time for a direct confrontation and his dreams of commanding Atlantis would need to be put on hold until there were definite answers.

"Agreed, I'll take Ronon and Teyla and I apologize Dr. Weir. I'm just concerned that you don't lose any more people."

"I'm sure they'll be fine, just as long as you're not planning on anything else going wrong with the Daedalus."

Caldwell gave her a quizzical look, wasn't sure if he was on the receiving end of a slur on his abilities or not.

"Hermiod assures me that the ship is more than capable. We'll get your men back Dr. Weir."

"I'm counting on it, Colonel."

((--))

Carson had been faced with something of a dilemma in boarding the Daedalus. Just how much did he need to take with him to cover whatever medical emergency he might encounter during the search and rescue mission for Sheppard and McKay? The question had resulted in spending a day perched on his laptop, perusing his CD collection of medical encyclopedias and the SGC medical database that someone had thoughtfully remembered to take with them.

Antibiotics were a given, and the safest bet was an amoxicillin/cluvalanic acid combo because that mix would hit both gram negative and gram positive bacteria. Blood products were a given. He'd gone for plasma, packed red cells, and blood clotting factors. Enough saline IVs to keep pushing drugs and liquids into whatever body happened to need it. He'd also been contemplating the effects of being stranded on the planet for over two months. He'd been informed that the jumper's emergency food supplies had been minimal. He presumed they'd found an alternate source, but if not he'd stocked up on banana bags, nasal gastric tubes and cans of formula. He didn't particularly like using NG tubes because there was always a chance of placing the tube into the trachea accidentally and having to withdraw and replace the tubing, not to mention nosebleeds and aspiration of the stomach contents. Then again if he was faced with two critically starved patients, presumably unconscious, there weren't going to be a lot of other options for providing nutritional support. He'd have to account for electrolyte problems, and try to correct them before even attempting to get calories into them. The last thing he needed was to rescue them alive and send them into cardiac arrest due to refeeding syndrome.

That only left all the other things he worried about because he knew that minor problems frequently turned into life threatening problems given enough time.

The Daedalus' own medical staff had given him a few cutting looks when he'd boarded because his presence implied that he didn't think they were up to coping with whatever they found. Unlike McKay, he knew the only way to remedy the situation was to explain his motivation immediately to the Daedalus' senior physician. One Dr. Theodore Jacobson, a man with an extensive background in treating traumatic injuries inflicted in war zones.

Their start had been rocky. Jacobson had appreciated Carson's honesty but he was miffed at being shunted aside by a civilian. Carson remedied the situation by explaining that Jacobson was still in charge for the duration, but Carson wanted to supervise the medical aspects of the SAR mission because he knew the two men best. Jacobson could understand it even if he thought Carson was a fool for investing so much emotionally in what might be a non-viable outcome.

Carson tried not to take offence at the term 'non-viable outcome'.

Slowly they had somehow managed to form a working relationship. It translated into Carson staying out the way, and Carson offering to take the night shifts even though his skills were never needed.

The only relief in the monotony was hanging out with Lorne. Carson had tried conversations with Ronon, but he was never much of a conversationalist and the two men were polar opposites. Carson didn't think 'down time' involved hitting other people for fun. Ronon didn't think 'down time' involved reading the latest copy of the _British Medical Journal_.

Teyla tried to play intermediary but she too was a person of action. She was not adverse to sitting around and talking but she preferred physical activity. In desperation Carson had even taken her up on stick practice and instantly regretted his decision when she'd rapped him across the knuckles.

"Lass, I need these for surgery!"

She'd apologized profusely but after that their relationship was back to what it always was. Polite.

That just left hanging out with Lorne. Beckett had never been keen on the USMC expeditionary force that occupied Atlantis because even though the jarheads had it regularly drilled into them that their attitudes reflects on the USMC and the entire armed services, a large number of them had a Semper Fi attitude that could just as easily translate into the arrogance they accused the science teams of having. Lorne managed to differentiate himself from his fellow marines. Not quite as relaxed as Sheppard and not as uptight as other commanding officers Beckett had found himself forced to meet while back on Earth. He could get along with Lorne and Lorne didn't mind the doctor hanging around with him. Occasionally Lorne would ask what it was like to live in Scotland and Beckett would ask what it was like to never have a home and just go from place to place on missions. Lorne would find Beckett's revulsion at military life funny and Beckett would feign being insulted when Lorne thought Scotland consisted of sheep, lochs, moors, haggis and people in kilts. Mind you, he _did_ have a kilt given as a gag gift by his colleagues when he'd left for some unknown research position with the US Air Force. He'd taken the kilt with him because it reminded him of all those people. He just preferred that no one knew he had it.

On day fourteen, Caldwell informed them that they were approaching the planet. Everyone had tensed up. Lorne had gone to ready his team, Carson had checked his supplies again. Jacobson had told him to calm down. It would get interesting soon enough.

That's the point, Carson had thought. I don't want it to get interesting because interesting is bad.

((--))

Rodney dipped a spoon into the liquid sitting in an empty case that had contained their MREs and power bars. He carefully measured it into the ever handy tin cup. Fortunately the casing had turned out to be water proof. Luckily it was big enough to hold all the soap.

The soap wasn't exactly what they were used to. It was brown for a start, compliments of the lye. Also it was liquid but unlike the liquid soap of the 21st century it was liquid in the way that semi-set jelly was liquid. It also kept the aroma of its constituent parts. It wasn't strong but there was no getting away from the fact that it was made of tallow.

It wasn't actually that much of a problem when the handy concoction had let them scrub off the dirt, wash their hair, shave off their beards, clean their clothes and their sleeping bags.

Screw laptops, thought Rodney, soap was just about the best thing mankind had ever invented, apart from the wheel.

He'd even taken on the daily duty of washing the eating utensils and it struck him as bizarre that he was suddenly thrilled to be washing dishes.

Having put the precious commodity into the cup he left the jumper to go down to the water's edge and start the housework.

He spied Sheppard, as usual, standing in the sea with his makeshift spear, waiting for some unfortunately curious fish to swim close. Ever since the rain, food sources had increased exponentially. There were more fish swimming around and they were bigger. There were the herbivores. There were also, unfortunately, the scavenger cats and that meant a trip to the river took two people, one holding a gun and one carting the water. McKay had to hand it to Sheppard. The man had taken another two days to get over his illness, whatever it had been, but then bounced back rapidly. In fact the man had been running around like the Energizer Bunny ever since. He'd even had an attempt at curing the pelt he'd sliced off the bison creature. It hadn't worked but Sheppard seem untroubled by the failure. His attitude had changed like the weather, from surly to sunny and instead of delaying trips to the river he seemed eager to get down there as often as he could. Rodney's only remaining worry had been Sheppard's total lack of interest in eating. He said he wasn't hungry and if he did eat, he felt full after a few bites.

As he crouched down to wash the cup, plate and spoon he noticed Sheppard plunge the sharpened stake into the water, pull out a large fish pierced right through the middle. It wiggled briefly on the end of the lance before deciding that it might as well die.

Sheppard turned, and grinning madly, started wading back towards the shore. He stopped by McKay, lifted an arm in triumph.

"I rock."

"Yes, triumphant hunter, you rock at catching fish."

Sheppard nodded, admired the fish on the end of the stake. He seemed a little too pleased in many ways and Rodney wasn't sure if the guy wasn't busily cycling up towards something worse than being in a shitty mood. Not that he minded, because he hadn't exactly enjoyed the surliness but now Sheppard had moved past normal and into a very perky version of Sheppard.

Sheppard walked over to the fire, pulled the fish off the spear and wandered over to Rodney, who was finishing up.

"I'm beginning to think I don't want to leave."

Rodney looked at Sheppard, and for a moment forgot to blink or exhale. Where had that statement come from?

"Well, the camping's been a terrific experience Colonel, very character building, can't wait to do it again, but personally I miss decent food and playing Solitaire on my laptop."

Sheppard laughed at his reply, put a disconcertingly friendly arm around Rodney's shoulders.

"Naw, Atlantis doesn't have anything on this place. We've got the whole planet to ourselves, a pretty comfortable lifestyle, lots of food, no stress. Definitely a keeper."

Yeah, okay, this was a new one. McKay wondered if he should remove the arm and the hand that had a hard grip on his shoulder.

"Right. If you so say. Uh… Why don't I go and gut the fish?"

Sheppard seemed to find this statement just as amusing as all the others. He threw his head back to laugh in the way that maniacs laugh. Rodney decided it might be a good idea to run away and just as he was about to put that plan into action, Sheppard dropped his spear and used his free right hand to punch Rodney in the side of the head. Hard.

Rodney staggered backwards and tried to return the compliment but got punched again in the same spot.

That's when he felt himself going down and the lights going out.

((--))

Sheppard wasn't sure what he was doing. A small voice reminded him that he was acting crazy. Knocking Rodney out was wrong. Just plain wrong. The stronger voice in him said that he needed to get back to the river because it was important. The water was there and it was flowing and it would make everything okay. After that he would understand why he had to stay on the planet and why all other considerations of his life were null and void. It was really important to bring along a friend. Whether the friend was conscious or not was entirely optional.

Perversely he'd been feeling strange ever since he'd pronounced himself better. At first he'd been delighted that he'd began to feel normal again. No more headaches, nausea gone, aches vanished, temperature down, lymph nodes back to normal. It felt like an honest to God miracle. He could move around, he could help out. He went back to fishing. He was happy. Rodney was happy that he was happy. They patched up their shaky friendship. Then Sheppard got happier. Too happy and off kilter to understand that something was amiss.

An odd tug in his brain and his body told him that he was in the wrong place. If he was happy at the moment, he'd be ecstatic standing in the river. Flowing fresh water was a better place to be. He'd have dreams about how good it would be to stand there again. It had turned from strange to instinct. An instinct to move, get down there, do this thing that needed to be done, even though he had no idea what it was.

He wanted to stay on the planet until he died. He wanted Rodney to stay until both of them died. He liked their new home, liked that he didn't have to cope with any human's bleeding or dying or getting hurt. Rodney was his only responsibility and it felt good just to have one thing to concentrate on.

Rodney's reluctance had been disappointing. He couldn't understand the polite refusal because he couldn't understand that Rodney wouldn't see the situation in the same way.

There was a lot of peace and quiet to be had on this planet. A lot of years to be able to hide.

He shifted the weight across his shoulders. He was carrying Rodney in a fireman's lift. He'd tried dragging him but the progress had been terrible. He cared more about the progress than about McKay getting cut up by the rough terrain. He kept laboring his way through the landscape, making his soggy way to the water's edge, Rodney's weight driving his boots down into the mud and the grass and not caring. Somehow, it occurred to him dimly he should have had the P90 with him but he had his sidearm and that would have to be enough.

He hefted the weight again, tried to adjust enough that his shoulder wasn't killing him, kept going. Was pleased when he heard the rush of flowing water. He staggered the last 50-feet, not so much depositing Rodney on the ground, but tipping himself forward and dropping McKay like a sack of potatoes.

He grabbed Rodney's arms and pulled him towards the river. It was important that McKay was in the water, that much he knew, and it was important that he was in there as well and the deeper the better.

He dragged, and the dragging got easier, and they slid in, Rodney floating on his back, and Sheppard up to his knees, heading for the drop off point.

((--))

Lorne and his marines were in full rattle, ready to rock and roll. Teyla had dressed in BDUs and the vest. Ronon was wearing what Ronon always wore. Consequently he looked like he was going for a stroll.

The fact that the marine's were fully decked out struck Beckett as odd because although the Daedalus' sensors showed the planet was teaming with life signs, by the way they moved around it was more than likely they were wild life. That had been one reason to take a team down. Getting any sort of lock that would let them beam supposed survivors on board was next to impossible.

There was also the small matter of the jumper. No signs of a power signature at all, so they'd set up a scan for wreckage. With no real lock on anything but some possible debris they were going to land, scout the area, determine the situation, and beam any survivors back to the Daedalus' sick bay. That was the theory anyway.

Beckett didn't like the fact that on top of going down to an alien planet they'd made him wear a vest, and a helmet. They hadn't made Teyla wear a helmet and he felt insulted and knew he looked stupid. The helmet was too big for starters because he couldn't figure out how to get the chin straps to work and he'd only taken a weapons theory course that Sheppard had put together, so the holster strapped to his right thigh was making him jumpy.

Beckett asked nervously, "Is there going to be shooting?"

"Probably not doctor," replied Lorne.

"Then why am I in this kit? And why isn't Ronon or Teyla?"

"Because I think having Atlantis' CMO running around in a possibly hostile situation without adequate protection is like having sex without a condom and not expecting to get pregnant."

"If that was an analogy I don't get it."

Lorne raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, let me put it this way, this is my mission, so I don't need Colonel Caldwell or Dr. Weir on my ass if you get injured."

"Fair enough. I was only asking."

Lorne nodded. "If you're ready, let's load and get this show on the road."

They were down in the hanger bay of the Daedalus, two jumpers ready to go.

The marines lined up in formation. Lorne surveyed them. Beckett lined up with them, clutching his med kit for something to clutch and wondered again why he'd been so keen to volunteer for the trip. Ronon managed to adopt a casual stance and Teyla seemed to be trying not to laugh.

"Do not disappoint me marines! This is going to be a smooth mission. We're going down, we find our MIAs and we bring them home!"

The marines shouted back, "Sir! Yes, sir!"

There was a collective "Oorah!" that made Beckett startle and then he flashed back to the scene in _Aliens_ where everyone was super confident right before they got their arses kicked.

Lorne stepped back and pointed towards the jumpers. "Load up and let's move!"

Beckett ran after them, his vest chaffing, wishing to God he could just stay here. Then he reminded himself that Sheppard and McKay were going to be relying on him so he'd better just get a backbone.

He just wished that getting a backbone didn't involve accompanying a bunch of gung ho soldiers, a Satedan warrior and a woman that could snap his arm like a twig. Theoretically he should have felt safer but he knew how these things worked. They attracted trouble like rotting meat attracted flies.

It was that damn curse.

((--))

Rodney woke up because he was floating on his back in ice cold water and when he opened his eyes, bright sunlight streamed down from a blue sky and hit his retinas hard enough to make him close his eyes again. Nothing like a bracing dip and bright light to bring a person back to full consciousness.

He vaguely recalled being punched in the head, then recalled that Sheppard had been the puncher. Not a good thing to recall because that meant Sheppard was crazy and he was stuck on a planet with a guy who'd had military training in how to incapacitate and kill people using his bare hands.

He was so fucked and he told himself he'd better just start dealing with it because he was still alive and that meant he had a chance.

Tentatively he opened his eyes again, tried to figure out what was happening. He risked a glance to his right, saw Sheppard standing beside him, staring down at the water. A quick check confirmed that he wasn't tied up. His arms had drifted out to the sides, his legs were free. For some reason Sheppard had stopped before venturing into deeper water, and for that, Rodney was extremely grateful.

Okay, he was going to have to do something amazingly physical and smart, which would be a stretch since he was good on the smart, not so good on the physical thing. He came up with a strategy of kicking the legs out from Sheppard and then running away and that was the only tactic that his brain could figure out.

The running away bit hadn't worked well back at the jumper, so he wasn't sure if his chances would be any good this time around either.

The plan was going to rely on taking Sheppard unawares because by the time he flipped himself over, somehow kicked Sheppard and then managed to get to his feet to run, Sheppard would probably karate chopped him in the larynx and killed him.

Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained he told himself.

He slowly bought his arms back to his sides, praying it wasn't enough to draw Sheppard's attention from his fixation on the water.

Just as he was about to perform his combination wrestling rabbit kick and leg sweep, Sheppard dropped to his knees in the cold water. Then he started throwing up. Puking was never good in anyone's book, especially not McKay's, but this was beyond nasty and into the realm of science fiction horror.

Rodney got a glimpse of a stream of liquid that was brown and putrid and seemingly populated by black marble pellets. All thoughts of staying still left him and he flipped over, climbed to his feet, ready to fend off Sheppard.

Not that it mattered. Sheppard was too busy barfing into the river to make a move on him.

McKay's instincts took over and despite it all, he looked down into the water in disgusted fascination. The brown pellets, the size of broad beans, hit the water and instantly transformed. Wriggling black larvae, twisting like centipedes, twitching with the need to escape their sacs, kicked their way free and headed towards the nearest warm source of fresh meat.

Rodney McKay.

All manliness vanished. He screamed out a heartfelt, "Shit!" Then he took off.

Blind instinct sent him running towards the jumper because the jumper was home, and home was safe. At least it was at the moment since Sheppard was still playing his part in completing some parasitic organism's life cycle and seemed disinclined to follow.

Somehow, some way he was going to have to protect himself. He did not want to be a host to anything. Not Goa'uld, not iratus bugs and certainly not the whatever-the-fuck-they-were in the river.

Normally Rodney wasn't a runner. He could walk briskly and he wasn't exactly out of shape, but he was in the league of people who didn't look cool when they ran. They didn't get great stride lengths, or their arms at just the right distance. When Rodney ran he was pretty sure he looked like a circus chimp that had been trained to mimic people walking up right. They could do it, but the act just looked awkward and silly.

Still, fear and adrenaline were both great motivators. He covered the distance to the jumper in record time, and could still almost breathe when he got there. He ignored the headache that came compliments of being punched. If he wasn't so worried about actually dying, he might have found the time to fret about a possible concussion.

Once at the jumper, he headed straight into the weapons cache, trying to figure out what he was going to do that wouldn't get them both killed. He grabbed the P90, stuck it on the bench next to him, and grabbed the case of C4 and the grenades. Too much fire power for Rodney and he sure as hell didn't want Sheppard getting it either. That left the remaining case containing the Glock and the Lugers. He could try using them, maybe get off a flesh wound.

Right. Flesh wound. That was a fantasy made by the movies. Usually the bullet went in, created an effect like a shock wave, destroyed the flesh behind it and in front of it, and fractured any bone in the way. Even a knick resulted in a sizeable furrow. Besides, with Rodney's aiming abilities he'd aim for Sheppard's foot and wind up blowing the man's head off.

Weapons that featured ammunition were right off the agenda.

That just left one thing.

The Taser.

Rodney picked it up, kissed it. "Thank God."

Holstering the Taser, he picked up the cases, and the field shovel, poked his head outside. No sign of Sheppard, which was good, or maybe not, he couldn't decide. He had a thought of Sheppard lying face down and dead in the water, or being mauled by the cats, but dismissed it, mainly because parasitic organisms liked to keep their victims around for as many tries at completing a life cycle as possible.

No, he was just taking his sweet time to get here.

That gave Rodney a slight advantage and also a chance to utilize his newly acquired ability to dig holes. He ran from the jumper, around to the front where sand had backed up against the nose, and frantically began excavating.

When he had a hole deep enough, he threw the P90 and all the cases into the hole, covered them over again, came back to the hatch opening and threw the field shovel inside.

If Sheppard looked hard enough, he'd find the obvious place of their burial but he'd have to dig them up first. That just left Sheppard's ever present knife and his Glock. McKay just hoped he could somehow reason with the man long enough to get a chance to fire the Taser if it came to that.

It struck Rodney that he could have just as easily head into the forest, and try to keep in front of Sheppard but he always came back to the same problem. Sheppard would find him because that's what Sheppard did. Find Rodney and get him out of trouble. Or in this case, find Rodney and get him _into_ trouble.

That just left hanging around the jumper, waiting for a face-off between scientist and pilot. It was like being in a bad Sly Stallone movie.

((--))

The jumpers landed about a twenty minute walk from what they presumed was wreckage. They'd done a fly over, sighted the jumper nose first into the side of a sand dune, seen some signs of someone living there – a still fire for one – and they were hopeful of a successful rescue.

The Daedalus' sensors had been right about the life signs. There was wildlife. Lots of it. Seemingly attracted by the lush grazing that surrounded them.

Of course, Beckett had watched enough wildlife documentaries on Discovery to know that where there was lots of animals, some of them would be predators.

He continued clutching his med kit, partially comforted by the fact that he was surrounded by marines and he was sure those same marines wouldn't hesitate to protect him. They were also the same marines he'd bossed around in the jumper and he currently had four of them toting litters and another one carrying a box of supplies. He hadn't come this far to fail and if, for some reason, the Daedalus couldn't beam them out, they'd just have to haul McKay and Sheppard back to the jumpers themselves.

Lorne seemed to find Beckett's unexpected command ability funny.

"And they say you're a wuss doctor."

Beckett had been checking his med kit for the tenth time before leaving the jumper and had yelled at a marine for almost dropping the same box of supplies.

"I am a wuss. I'm just less wussy when it comes to my patients and medicine."

Lorne slapped him on the back and said to the no one in particular, "I want everyone to do what the good doctor says. In medical matters you defer to him. If I catch anyone not following his orders, I will bust their ass so hard, they will lose the power to sit down or take a shit ever again. Do I make myself clear?"

"Sir! Yes, sir!"

Beckett winced at the shouting. Why was it that they had to shout so much?

Speaking of shouting - he could hear voices floating on the wind. Definitely human shouting and screaming. Sounded like words. Lorne heard it too.

"Double time it people!"

And they ran.

((--))

Sheppard had come out of the clearing at full speed, seemingly oblivious to anything but his objective; getting to Rodney and taking Rodney back to the river.

McKay was sure of one thing as he watched the figure of Sheppard cross the sand. If he didn't time this right, he was going to either have to kill Sheppard or Sheppard was going to kill him in his eagerness to haul him back to his watery fate.

"Stop right there!"

Sheppard didn't bother with the stopping, only slowed himself down to a walk. As he got closer, McKay could see he looked dreadful. Hardly unexpected considering he'd been puking up larvae.

Rodney unholstered the Taser, pointed it in Sheppard's direction.

"If you don't stop, I'm going to shoot."

This amused Sheppard. "With that fucking thing? Right. How about you drop it and I won't shoot you with this."

Sheppard unholstered his Glock, pointed it in McKay's direction. Then he grinned at McKay's shocked reaction.

"I guess this is what they call a stand off. 'Cept you gotta get close enough to hit me Rodney and I don't plan on getting in range."

Fantastic, thought Rodney. Why did he always have to blow any element of surprise? He could have just hid the Taser behind his back, but no, he wanted to play fair, or maybe he was squeamish at the concept of hitting his formerly sane friend with 50 thousand volts.

He'd have to use the only thing he had going for him – his complete lack of rational action after he'd been pushed too far. He'd put up with Sheppard's misplaced babysitting attempts, his surliness, nursed him through his sickness, and for his efforts he'd been knocked unconscious, and dumped in a river so Sheppard could vomit up larvae intent on infecting McKay.

He'd had enough.

"I read the instructions on Tasers back in that stupid weapons theory course you made us take," he sneered back at Sheppard. "I always wind up memorizing useless facts. The range of the Taser is thirty-five feet you moronic excuse for a fly boy."

With that, he fired, aiming at Sheppard's chest. The two probes hit his t-shirt, piercing and snagging what McKay thought was flesh and watched, horribly captivated by the sight, as the charge surged into Sheppard.

The man startled, let out a brief yell of pain, doubled over, the muscles in his arms and legs obviously contracting.

McKay took his finger off the trigger and Sheppard almost instantly recovered.

"Stay down!"

Sheppard took no noticed, started reaching for the probes to pull them out. Automatically McKay hit the trigger again and kept his finger there while he counted off three seconds.

This time the Colonel came to a dead stop, every muscle in spasm before dropping to the sand, completely disorientated. McKay took his finger off the trigger, waited briefly to see if Sheppard was getting up again, then gingerly approached him, pulling out some wiring from his back pocket.

He had to holster the Taser to grab Sheppard's wrists and tie them together but he had no intent of taking out the probes connecting Sheppard to the business end of the Taser just yet.

Grabbing one hand, he managed to get some wiring tied before the guy started showing more signs of life.

McKay was past the point of being delicate. He didn't want to die, and he didn't want Sheppard to die, but he did want Sheppard to lie down and be quiet.

He didn't even bother unholstering the Taser. Just went for the trigger and shocked Sheppard again, causing the man to writhe in the sand and go limp.

Taking that as a sign that he'd subdued the lunatic, he rolled Sheppard over face first, put a foot on his back to make sure he could keep him down and started to bind the wrists like he'd turned into a champion calf roper.

He was just contemplating what he was going to do with a bound up Sheppard when a very tall figure with dreadlocks and an attitude performed a football tackle on him and sent him plowing into the ground.

This was not a good day. No good at all.

((--))


	8. Chapter 8

_Any medical mistakes in this chapter are definitely mine (unfortunately). _

**Chapter Eight**

To say that Beckett had been surprised by the sight of Rodney McKay not only tasering Sheppard, but also trying to tie him up was the understatement of the century. In fact, it had surprised everyone so much that for an entire minute the group had just stood there. Even Ronon and Teyla.

The spell had been broken when Beckett let out an amazed, "Bloody hell."

That galvanized Ronon, who took off, bringing down McKay with a full body blow that sent both men flying. Beckett and the marines charged in after him.

Rodney wasn't going to stay lying down without a fight. He seemed frantic to get away, completely hysterical, and in between uncoordinated punches he kept screaming, "He's infected."

Beckett quickly sized up the scenario. He threw his med kit on the ground, pulled out a syringe and loaded it with lorazepam. At the rate Rodney was going the marines would hurt him, or – and it surprised Beckett to even consider this – Rodney would hurt the marines.

"Hold him down."

McKay got a look at Carson and seemed simultaneously grateful and pissed off. "What are you doing!"

"Sedating you."

That seemed to galvanize Rodney even more. He kneed a marine in the groin and managed to get a hand free long enough to fling sand into someone's eyes.

"Doc, do you want to hurry it up here? He seems to be stronger than I remember." Ronon had thrown himself across the torso of McKay and was trying to pin the arms.

Beckett aimed for the closest available muscle group. It happened to be Rodney's left thigh. He plunged the needle in, not worrying about injecting straight through clothing. They had to continue to hold him for another two minutes but then the drug kicked in and thirty seconds later all fight abruptly left McKay.

It's a pity the same couldn't have been said for Sheppard. Teyla had gone to help him. She'd untied him and he'd rolled over and he'd sat up like he was spring loaded. Beckett didn't bother to straighten up, just crab walked over to Sheppard, dragging his med kit. Looked him straight in the face for clues to the man's state of health, and got the strong feeling that he was seeing what was professionally known as 'crazy eyes' but dismissed his gut instincts for the time being. They'd be back on the Daedalus soon enough and then he could get them both into restraints. The best bet now was to play it innocently and get some information from Sheppard while keeping another hypodermic ready.

"You okay Colonel?"

The eyes were sparkling and wide. "Yeah, I'm great. How's McKay?"

"Out for the count. Would you mind telling me what Rodney was doing?"

Sheppard sighed, looked downcast. "He started losing it when the Daedalus didn't show up as expected."

"Yes, well, turned out they had a trouble with their hyperdrive system. Gave us all a scare."

"Poor guy started going nuts a couple of weeks ago. You know what McKay's like - over reacts to everything, always on edge. I tried distracting him but he got hostile. That's when he tasered me."

Teyla looked concerned. "I hope you are not badly injured."

"No, I'm good. It was a shocker but I'm over it." He winked at her, trying to get her to laugh at his joke. She tentatively returned his smile. Perhaps she also sensed that things were not as they should be.

"Sounds bad," said Beckett keeping his mood light and noting that a Glock was lying in the sand a few feet from Sheppard.

"Yeah, Rodney's a great guy. Can you help him Carson?"

"I'm going to give it a bloody good try. Now, let's get you to your feet and get out of here."

He and Teyla gave Sheppard a hand up, saw that Lorne and Ronon were supporting a drugged Rodney. He nodded at Lorne.

"Let's get this over with."

Lorne nodded. "Daedalus, we're clear."

There was a blinding flash of light and Beckett, Lorne, Ronon, Teyla, Rodney and Sheppard disappeared.

The marines left behind started securing the site. As they worked they postulated on just what the hell the two men had been through and how it had managed to drive one formerly semi-meek scientist to assault and one former tough-guy pilot into the ground.

((--))

They materialized in sickbay and Beckett let out a sigh of relief at having not been solidified inside a bulkhead, or for that matter, the vacuum of space. He hated Ancient technology, especially the stuff that mimicked _Star Trek_. He'd watched _Star Trek_ and transporter accidents were a leading cause of death amongst day players and extras.

Lorne and Ronon walked Rodney over to a bed. Jacobson was there waiting, automatically doing what any good doctor would do – assessing the patient.

"I gave him three milligrams of lorezepam," said Beckett as he grabbed the grinning Sheppard by the arm and walked him to another free bed. Teyla went with him, seemingly compelled to keep her eye on her recently recovered team leader.

Jacobson nodded. "Okay, you want me to do the exam?"

"Yeah, check him over, get him cleaned up. Let's run that standards. CBC, Chem-7, standard liver function panel, get a GGT with it and I want a urinalysis when he wakes up."

"Got it."

A nurse moved over to the bed, clutching a tray bearing a range of tubes with different colored stoppers. Jacobson and his team concentrated on removing Rodney's clothing with the help of scissors and brute strength.

Both Lorne and Ronon backed off but then stood in the middle of the controlled chaos looking distinctly out of place.

"If you don't need me Dr. Beckett, I think I'll go make sure the rest of the squad makes it back in one piece," said Lorne.

"Of course."

Lorne made for the exit, Ronon following. Beckett called Ronon back, for some reason his instincts telling him that having a warrior like Ronon around might just be a good thing.

"Ah, Ronon, if you could do me the favor of just hanging around for a few more minutes, I'd like to get a blood sample from you as well."

He didn't blame Ronon for looking confused by the request, but Carson just didn't know how to explain his suspicions. His intuition said that keeping Ronon around Sheppard would be a damn good idea.

"Do you also require my assistance Dr. Beckett?" Teyla hovered by the bed, seemingly unsure of just what she should be doing now the medical team had taken over.

"No love. Not at the moment. I'll call you if I need anything." The gentlemen part of him insisted that if anything was going to happen, Teyla should be out of harm's way. The fact that she was a much better fighter and more than capable of defending herself did nothing to dampen down the voice of his first year Phys Ed. Teacher, Mr. Smith. A man who insisted that the reason he was making them shimmy up a rope dangling from the gym ceiling was that one day they'd have to defend their girlfriends. Beckett flashed back to his eleven-year old self, stranded at the top of the rope while Smith turned red and screamed at him, "Beckett if you don't stop your sniveling I'm going to let the sixth year rugby team use you as a ball and then you'll have something to cry about!"

Boarding school toughened him up but it did not prepare him for a life in the Pegasus Galaxy one little bit.

Teyla didn't like it but she did as she'd been told. Ronon nodded once, stepped back to stand beside a wall, out of the way, while Beckett guided Sheppard onto the waiting bed, and pulled the curtain. That was the one good thing about the sickbay on the Daedalus. They'd managed to install curtains so the patients had some form of privacy.

Sheppard willingly sat down but seemed to be eyeing up Carson with an almost predatory gleam in his eye.

"Are you going to run the same tests on me, Doc?"

"Too bloody right I am. We didn't go this far to have you two present with some unknown wee beastie that could kill you."

Sheppard gave him a weird look and then shrugged. "No, I wouldn't want to be infected with a beastie either."

"Okay, get your shirt off, I'll check you out, get the samples and you can take a shower."

That seemed to make Sheppard even more cheerful. "A shower... That'd be great."

The marginally clean t-shirt came off, Beckett winced at the condition of the skin. Some nasty sores to clean up, but thankfully nothing too infected. A bit skinnier than he would have liked but it was better than dragging back some emaciated survivor with a body on the verge of shutting down. Apart from that, he seemed in reasonable condition for someone who'd been stranded in primitive conditions.

Following his quick survey, Carson did what he always did and warmed up the stethoscope by rubbing it on his lab coat. He listened for any oddity in the heart beat or rales in the lungs. All clear and normal. He put on the blood pressure cuff, pumped it up, tucked the stethoscope into the crook of the arm, listened for the thump of the brachial artery reopening as he released the pressure.

"One-hundred and five over sixty-five."

The figure was a little off. Not enough to alarm him considering what they had been through and Sheppard had always been fit with a systolic sitting around 110 and diastolic of seventy. He noted on a chart that they would need to monitor it carefully over the next twenty-four hours and ensure that the pressure stabilized. That just left the samples and Beckett, unlike many doctors who'd let themselves get out of practice, was more than adept at finding a vein on the first attempt. The blood flowed easily.

"At least you're hydrated," said Beckett.

"Yeah. There was a river. A lot of rain. We got lucky."

Both men fell silent as they watched Beckett swiftly change the tubes over as they filled, placing each one in the tray. It also gave Carson a chance to consider whether an MRI of Sheppard's head was going to find anything. After that, he picked up an empty plastic container, passed it to Sheppard.

"If you could kindly pee into this, I'd appreciate it." Carson pointed towards the sickbay bathroom. "You can take a shower straight after."

Normally Carson wouldn't have been hanging around the bathroom when he had a fully ambulatory patient but something about Sheppard's disposition told him that supervision would be a good idea.

He pulled the curtains to one side, Sheppard didn't bother to pull his shirt back on, just headed for the bathroom, Carson following him.

Jacobson looked up from McKay's bedside, the scientist in question now in a hospital gown and tucked into bed. "I think there's a fresh set of scrubs and towels in there. Go nuts."

Sheppard smiled again, wide and feral, and that frightened Carson because Sheppard was not a man who smiled often and certainly not like that.

They entered the bathroom together. There was a small wooden bench, a white towel and white scrubs placed there by a nurse. Sheppard laughed when he saw the shower, the separate bath, the toilet.

"A flush toilet. Never thought I'd see one again. Pity I'm taking a leak into a cup."

Then he shut the sliding door, emerged a minute later with the plastic container filled, the lid screwed on tightly and placed it on the bench.

Carson took the container as Sheppard turned on the shower. The sight of warm water flowing down the drain seemed to instantly mesmerize him.

"Thanks, Colonel. The lab will be thrilled."

Sheppard didn't look up, captivated by the sight of running water. "Glad to help."

It struck Carson at that point in time he probably shouldn't have turned his back to leave. But he did and in a split second he found himself rammed face first into a wall, his right hand twisted up hard behind his back, the sample rolling off across the floor.

He let out a terrified yell and the next thing he knew, Ronon was charging in, sizing up the situation, and pulling an abnormally strong Sheppard off Carson.

Carson got to his feet as rapidly as he could, shouted back to Jacobson. "Get me some fentanyl!"

Ronon continued struggling with Sheppard, both of them trying to get a grip on the other man, Beckett trying not to get himself caught between the two thrashing warriors. He hastily stepped backwards just as Ronon crashed Sheppard into the wooden bench, forcing his knees to buckle.

"Keep still you crazy motherfucker!" That was Ronon again and Carson made a mental note to himself to ask Ronon where he'd picked up such appalling language.

Jacobson came sprinting towards them, needle at the ready. Sheppard broke free and instead of running out, got into the shower. Definitely crazy behavior.

"Doc, this isn't good," said Ronon.

Jacobson and Beckett paired up and started to approach the Lieutenant Colonel standing in the shower, fully clothed, and completely soaked.

"John, I'm just going to give you an injection and then you'll feel better. I imagine what you really need is a good night's sleep."

That was of course, a total lie, but Carson was just hoping the tone of his voice would keep Sheppard calm, much like he would hope talking to a frightened dog would stop it from biting. He'd also deliberately chosen fentanyl due to the rapid onset. He wanted his patient to keel over as rapidly as possible and fentanyl, although short acting, would do just that. It would be enough time to at least get him strapped to a gurney.

Just as Carson got within striking range, Sheppard's legs buckled. He fell to his knees and threw up. Not a good sign.

It was even a worse sign that the vomit contained what Becket initially thought were blood clots. Then he watched the rounded shapes bulge, break open and insect creatures out of his worst nightmare make a running escape attempt for the drain.

"Holy mother of God," exclaimed Jacobson.

None of them made any moves to approach Sheppard, the sight of living bugs spewing forth from a human being inducing an instinctive and primitive revulsion. Carson realized it was also out of self protection, especially when a number of the creatures ignored the drain and tried to exit the shower and head for Carson and Jacobson.

"What do you want me to do!" That was Ronon, who sounded panicked. A panicked sounding Ronon meant it _was_ really as bad as Carson thought. Carson watched as Ronon started reaching for his gun, presumably to shoot the creepy critters having a free-for-all around Sheppard's kneeling form. The last thing Carson needed was weapons fire in a small space.

"Just keep away from them," shouted back Carson. "Jacobson, do you keep any insecticides around here?"

"Sure. We had a team come back infected with the local form of body lice. Had to douse the lot of them."

"I'm thinking we try it out on our little friends here."

"You got it."

Jacobson exited the bathroom rapidly, the creatures attempting to follow. Ronon gave up and went for a more permanent solution. He started stomping on them. Unfortunately it seemed to only slow them down.

But slow was better than nothing, and now that three of the bastards were making a play at trying to climb up his boots, Carson joined Ronon and did his own impression of the flamenco. Sheppard in the mean time had stopped vomiting but was still kneeling, his expression dazed.

Jacobson made it back with the insecticide. It was in liquid form, stored in a liter bottle, like shampoo. He didn't need any encouragement and began squirting it on anything that was alive and had more than two legs.

Their insect friends – resembling elongated, skinny leeches - seemed to be as resilient as cockroaches and they kept moving for a further three minutes, running around in circles, seemingly agitated beyond belief that their attempts to infect new hosts had been foiled.

They waited until all the insects appeared to have breathed their last, then Carson pulled the top of Sheppard's pants away from his hip and Jacobson stuck Sheppard with the fentanyl. The guy was out in under a minute.

Carson felt for a pulse, got one. They both hauled him out of the shower, and both of them set about stripping off the wet clothing, kicking dead insects out of the way with their feet.

Two orderlies were there with a gurney and between Carson, Jacobson and Ronon they lifted Sheppard up, rolled him onto his side and covered him with a blanket.

Beckett turned to bark orders at Ronon, even though Ronon wasn't exactly an official marine. "You need to inform Colonel Caldwell that we have biohazard contamination. Get the hazmat team and get those drains cleared."

"You got it," replied Ronon and he scooted out as fast as possible, hitting his comms button at the same time.

Jacobson looked at the still form of Sheppard and then at Beckett. "Okay, what's our next move? I don't know about you, but this is getting out of my area of expertise."

"The first thing I want to know is how many more of those little buggers are still in him, and what they hell they've done to his stomach."

"You're worried about blood loss…"

"His pressure was down a bit and I didn't like the color of that vomit."

"Yeah. Black. Definitely blood loss."

"Let's do an endocopsy of the upper GI while he's still out. Order up some whole blood."

"Good call, let's get him into the OR. I've got all the gear in there."

((--))

Rodney was slowly making a return to consciousness, yet again, only this time he wasn't in cold water, and no one had punched him. He was comfortable and warm and he didn't smell and that was very pleasant, all things considered.

There was however, the small matter of the restraints. Part of him wanted to protest, and he really wanted to roll over onto his side and curl up semi fetal but it struck him that being in a bed, and not being pounded on by Sheppard was good. He should be grateful and leave it at that. Besides, he was still sleepy and although he could hear screaming and yelling he just decided that he was going to ignore it because it was easy enough not to have to think any more about the situation. He closed his eyes and drifted away.

((--))

Carson hadn't wasted any time in threading the endoscope down Sheppard's esophagus after Jacobson had inserted the plastic guard between Sheppard's teeth. Jacobson then busied himself running in an IV line and setting up a unit of O Neg.

Carson kept his attention focused on the screen, threading down until he hit the stomach and tried not to gag. Sheppard's stomach was a filled mass of black sacs, all showing signs of movement. He couldn't even make out the mucosa.

Jacobson was as appalled as he was. "It's a wonder he's not dead."

Beckett maneuvered the endoscope, trying to check out the stomach for bleeders and failed miserably. "There's too many of them. I can't see a thing."

"I wonder how they're surviving in the environment." For Jacobson a certain amount of medical curiosity had taken over.

"I'd say that the sac must be some form of protection against gastric acids," replied Carson, both repulsed and fascinated.

"Any ideas about how we're going to get them out?"

"They look too big to aspirate even if we used a large gauge NG tube."

"Then get some ipecac into him."

Carson winced. "I'm not so sure about that in his condition. He'll need to be conscious, ipecac is pretty brutal, I don't know how low his potassium level is, and we don't know how violent he's going to be."

"It's either that or make him swallow the insecticide and I think that would effectively kill him."

"So until we find a less lethal formula..."

"… Induce vomiting and get that shit out of him."

"We'll need a container we can seal the emesis in and we'll need to put the insecticide in there. Kill them off instantly."

"Not a problem."

Jacobson went for a container, also calling in two nurses to help out. Carson was more than aware that his dose of fentanyl was probably wearing off, so he removed the endoscope, and made sure that Sheppard was well and truly bound down. Restraints on his ankles and on his wrists, then a strap across his chest before they got the gurney up so that he was propped at a thirty degree angle.

Now they just had to get the syrup into him.

Carson measured out a thirty milliliter dose into a needless syringe, and a nurse draped a towel across Sheppard's chest. Jacobson began rousing him by rubbing hard on his sternum with his fist and yelling into Sheppard's ear.

"Come on John. Wake up! Open your eyes and wake up!"

There was nothing like being screamed at and having someone digging their knuckles into your chest to get a response. They were both pleased to see him groggily make an effort to come back to consciousness. Even though Sheppard's eyes weren't fully open, Carson went for his opportunity because a semi-sedated patient would respond to commands even if they couldn't remember anything about it the next day.

He got the syringe right against his patient's lips, yelling his next instruction. "You need to open your mouth for me, Colonel!"

Sheppard, still bewildered, didn't respond. Jacobson helped out by gripping the bottom half of Sheppard's jaw and pulling it open. Carson slide the needleless syringe in, squirted out the whole amount, Jacobson promptly held the jaw shut and Carson titled Sheppard's head back provoking a swallowing reflex even as Sheppard was grimacing at the enforced dosing.

Beckett then grabbed the bottle of water they had on hand. Sheppard was starting to be more aware, so Carson opted to not scream at him again.

"Do me a favor Colonel and drink this."

He got a bleary look, as if Sheppard was recognizing a former colleague at a party but wasn't sure. Thankfully he complied with Beckett's request. It was messy, most of it spilled out of his mouth and onto the towel but they still got water into him.

They stood back, taking a breather. Carson glanced at his watch. "In fifteen minutes, this is going to get very unpleasant."

Jacobson grimaced. "No kidding. Let's get gowned up."

Carson turned back to the more aware Sheppard. The man had clicked to being restrained and he was giving the nurse changing the towel a suspicious look.

"Hey Carson, what's going on?"

"Welcome back, Colonel. I'm just going to change."

"Change into what?"

"New gown. Hold fire for a couple of minutes and I'll be back to explain everything."

((--))

Rodney woke up again with a start. The sedation was wearing off and that translated into drifting backwards and forwards between awareness and sleep. Problem was, he couldn't work out what had jerked him back from his somnolent state.

Then he felt something crawling up his left leg, tickling the hairs as it went, a multitude of gripping, clawing legs attached to a creepy-crawly looking for a home.

((--))

Sheppard was wide awake, sizing up Carson with a look of anger and testing the restraints. All pretence had left him.

"You need to let me go."

"I can't do that John. You've been infected by a parasitic organism and you don't appear to thinking right."

"I'm thinking perfectly fine!" Sheppard pulled at the restraints again.

"Look, son you need to listen to me. We're going to do everything we can to help you but in the interim it's going to get worse before it gets better. Do you understand?"

Sheppard pulled again, upset, unhappy.

"I just want to go back to the planet. How hard is that to understand! It's my fucking home and you had no permission to rip me out of there. I didn't ask to leave!"

"You might feel differently later on."

"NO! Get me out of here and take me back!"

Sheppard was jerking his arms in an attempt to loosen the cuffs but the struggling was ineffective. Then he suddenly went quiet.

A nurse placed the container loaded with insecticide under Sheppard's face.

Jacobson took a protective step back. "To quote from _The Matrix_. 'He's gonna pop'."

Carson shot a half hearted scowl at Jacobson but had to agree that the quote summed it up. "That's not funny."

"I've got two choices here. Funny or scared out of my mind. I'm going for funny because scared-out-of-mind makes me want to run away."

"In that case stick with funny because I need all the help I can get."

On cue, Sheppard bent his head, retroperistalsis kicked in, his abdominal muscles contracted involuntarily and forced him to heave up the first wave of egg sacs. Carson and Jacobson both simultaneously pulled a face at the sight of the projectile vomiting and the black egg sacs breaking open in the pool of insecticide. Sheppard kept hurling and right about then, Rodney started screaming for help.

((--))

McKay had figured he was safe and just fine and dandy. That's what being in the infirmary meant. You might not feel great, limbs may have been broken, brain ricocheted on the inside of the skull, breathing hard work, lots of beeping and monitors but in general, the crappy parts were over. You were off whatever shitty planet you'd been on, and baring complications Beckett and his medical team would put humpty back together again, even if it involved orthopedic screws and titanium plating.

Being in the infirmary did not mean being felt-up by alien critters. Yeah, Rodney's luck – he'd appreciated within a few seconds it wasn't just one, but a whole family.

"Help me! Somebody, anybody, anybody with a gun or a weapon, anybody at all!" To Rodney's adrenaline soaked mind, it appeared his frantic requests were being ignored. He'd been kicking his legs around, pleased to find they hadn't tied down his ankles, but the critters were acting like they were going 8-seconds in a rodeo and he couldn't dislodge them and now they were biting him. Biting him with mouth parts that resembled serrated blades.

"Help me you sons of bitches! Seriously!"

To his relief, Carson came running to his bedside, his shoes squeaking on the floor, clutching a bottle of red stuff that Rodney couldn't identify.

"What's wrong Rodney?"

"I'm being attacked by those bugs, you idiot. Get them off!"

To Carson's credit he acted with lightening reflexes. He yanked off the blankets, got an eyeful of Rodney's legs crawling with insects, upended the bottle and squirted the poisonous liquid in all directions. Seemed he liked to be prepared.

Rodney closed his eyes, mainly because although he didn't know what Carson was liberally splashing around, the last thing he needed was to catch it in the face and go blind. That would just ruin his day.

"Determined little fuckers."

Rodney cracked open an eye at the sound of Beckett cursing up a storm.

"You've been around the marines too long."

Carson ignored him, concentrating on Rodney's legs while wiping off the insecticide.

"Oh hell, I think they bit you."

"No kidding."

"Hell."

"You've said that."

Beckett put the bottle down, gnawing his bottom lip. He hit his comms button.

"This is Beckett. In case you missed Ronon's call, I _urgently_ need a hazmat team to sickbay for a sweep and cleanup."

Someone acknowledged his call and he turned his attention to his friend. "Rodney, I don't want you to panic. I'm going to get the nurse to help clean you up, and get you out of the restraints for the mean time. The hazmat team will make sure there are no insects left."

"That's nice Carson but excuse me for only being concerned about whether you have a cure or not."

"Sorry lad, as yet no cure. We've only just started working on sorting this mess out."

"Typical."

"You can do me a big favor though. I want you to list all of Colonel Sheppard's symptoms and any reactions he may have had. Don't exclude any detail. The more you can tell us, the better it will be."

"Yeah, that's what I want to spend my last hours doing. Writing up a medical report on Sheppard's delusional behavior."

"Rodney, I'm sure the life cycle of these creatures is a lot slower than a day. It's probably going to take a week for symptoms to develop and it's not going to kill you straight away."

"No, just turn me into a psycho."

"As if anyone is going to notice the difference."

"Asshole. Where's Colonel Creepy?"

"Donating some samples in the name of science."

A nurse had hustled over to Rodney's bedside and was busy cleaning the bite marks. His legs looked like Sheppard's had on the planet – incised with precision ground holes.

Carson put more sympathy in his voice as he noticed Rodney's miserable expression.

"Don't worry. We'll figure this out."

Rodney's expression didn't change. "Go do that voodoo that you do Carson, because I think you're the only one that can save our collective butts."

Carson didn't need to be told twice and headed back to the OR.

((--))


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

He was greeted by the sight of a wrung out Sheppard lying against the pillows, sweat pouring off his face, red eyes, a nurse carrying away the sealed container, and Jacobson trying to force more ipecac down Sheppard's throat.

Predictably, Sheppard was adamant about refusing the second dose. He turned his head away from Jacobson and flatly refused to open his mouth, even with Jacobson trying to get his jaw open.

"What in the hell is going on!"

Jacobson stopped what he was doing, calmly began filling in Carson. "We need to be sure we got everything. That means a second dose."

"No signs of dry retching?"

"No, he was vomiting those things right up until he stopped."

Unfortunately Jacobson had a point. He didn't like it, but in the name of medicine, Carson was often forced to hurt in the name of a cure. That was the main reason doctors, like soldiers, found themselves inured to the misery of those around them.

He took the syringe off Jacobson and approached Sheppard.

"I know you don't need to hear this, but I'm going to give you a second dose."

"I don't want it."

"No choice I'm afraid. You either swallow this voluntarily or we can insert an NG tube and force it down you. I'd prefer not to use the NG tube."

Sheppard gave Carson the filthiest look he could manage, and Carson felt like he always did when he was in ER situations - the most inhumane person in the galaxy. On the upside, Sheppard complied, and Carson was able to give him another thirty mils of ipecac and another bottle of water.

"I hate you Carson," said Sheppard.

"You can hate me all you want. In fact, I prefer you hated me while you kept living rather than like me up until you died of complications."

"Screw you."

With that, Sheppard turned his head again, and tried to ignore both men.

Beckett and Jacobson took the opportunity change into fresh gowns, noting through the OR windows that a hazmat team had hit sickbay and were swarming over every nook and cranny they could find, including the ever complaining Rodney.

Carson positioned himself back by Sheppard's side, along with Jacobson. A nurse arrived back with a fresh container, the inside sloshing with insecticide as they readied themselves. Waiting was always the hardest part.

As Sheppard began his second round of vomiting, compliments of the emetic, a lab assistant rushed into the OR.

"Dr. Beckett, we just did a smear on the Colonel's blood and you have _got_ to see this."

Carson raised an eyebrow at Jacobson.

"Yeah, go ahead. I'll keep watch on puke duty."

"Thanks."

"You're going to owe me for this."

"I know."

Carson left, grateful to be away from a scene that reminded him of _The Exorcist_ and followed the assistant into the labs connected to the OR, sat himself in front of the microscope and gasped at what he saw on the slide.

The lab assistant's sample had highlighted the fact that Sheppard's blood was populated with what appeared to be microscopic worms, happily swimming in between the red blood cells.

He squinted at the organism and wondered what in the hell he was looking at. At first glance they appeared to be some sort of nematode but the transparent worm didn't appear to have a gut or a central nervous system upon closer inspection. The only bug he'd ever managed to become an expert on was drosophila and that was only because they were the research animal of choice for genetics, and consequently he had no idea on how he should classify the parasite.

"This just gets worse and worse."

Still, it explained Sheppard's behavioral changes. Carson's immediate thought was that the worms had also managed to hitch a ride across the blood brain barrier and God knows what kind of damage they were doing. At the low end of the scale, it would be neurotransmitter manipulation, at the high end, cysts and cell destruction. Why the hell hadn't he read more about parasitic infection before going on the mission?

"Damn it!"

The lab assistant – he thought her name was Susan – gave him a startled look.

"I'm not yelling at you, love. Just at myself and those confounded little buggers under the microscope."

"What would you like me to do?"

"Start trying to find a drug that will kill them and can be taken internally."

"Any suggestions?"

"Try everything and anything, standard and non standard. Try and get some DNA out of them and pin down if they've got any cousins on Earth. That might help."

"You got it."

She didn't acknowledge Carson any further but hustled off to the supply room to gather what she would need to start her tests.

In the interim, sure he could nothing more in the lab, Carson went back to the OR to check on progress.

Sheppard was dry retching over an emesis bowl, a sign of an empty stomach and that served to cheer Carson slightly. He smiled to himself and found the smile wasn't returned from the Colonel. He stopped retching and laid back down again, looking miserable. Carson didn't need to ask, Jacobson was already there, with another loaded hypodermic.

"What'd you get?"

"Lorazepam. It'll keep him out for longer than the fentanyl."

Sheppard may have been exhausted but he could still hear.

"You are not sedating me."

Carson attempted a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Sorry about this, but I need to do another endocopsy. You'll be out for two hours. Don't worry, it's almost over."

Sheppard's face said it all. If he wasn't tied down he would have strangled both doctors then and there and Beckett wasn't sure that this entirely due to parasitic influence. Carson took the hypodermic, swabbed an arm and injected the contents.

Sheppard had enough time to get off a heart felt, "Get fucked". Then he sank into sedation. That task over with, they undid the restraints, checked he was under far enough to prevent him from making a run for it, rolled him and then Carson went back in with the endoscope for a second look. Jacobson rigged up a bag of saline to counteract the dehydration from the ipecac.

An empty stomach gave Carson a much clearer view of the damage.

"Crap."

Jacobson peered at the monitor. "Overly enthusiastic for parasites, I'll give them that."

It appeared the life cycle of the parasite involved a move from the blood stream and into the stomach by going through the stomach wall. Small holes, the diameter of a pencil, were dotted around the stomach. Some were healing, some still oozed enough blood to worry them both. The only positive note was that they seemed to have been organized in their perforations. Considering the number of egg sacs, Carson half expected the stomach to resemble a colander. Instead it seemed they had drilled about five or so entry wounds and followed each other in an orderly fashion.

Carson quickly filled in Jacobson on the worms he'd seen in Sheppard's blood sample.

Jacobson touched the monitor with one finger, tracing one of the holes as Carson maneuvered the camera. "Not enough to kill him. Yet."

"I'm going to cauterize the bleeders."

"Normally I'd say that was a great idea but this time I'm not so sure."

Carson was threading the cauterization instrument down the endoscopy tube, didn't bother to stop but he did reply. "And why don't you think it's a good idea?"

"Because he's still infected. How long do you think it's going to be before it starts all over again?"

"I have no idea but my main focus right now is to cure what I can see."

"Fair enough."

"I'm not going to leave him like this."

"I didn't say you should. Just that you're going to have to keep repeating the procedure until we figure out how to kill them."

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

"Okay. Sure. Just thinking out loud."

Carson ignored Jacobson for the rest of the process, concentrating instead on burning closed any remaining holes, and sealing off the leaks. Satisfied, he removed the endoscope, rolled Sheppard onto his back again, propped the bed back up.

Jacobson gestured at Sheppard with his thumb. "Forced vomiting, two endoscopies and cauterization. He's going to be uncomfortable when he wakes up."

"I know."

They stood looking at their patient for a few more seconds, and then a knock at the window of the OR frightened them half to death.

Rodney was standing outside in his hospital gown, holding a laptop and waving at them madly.

"I see your patient is up and about," said Carson.

Jacobson sniffed. " My patient? Who said anything about him being my patient? He looks high maintenance to me."

Beckett smiled at Rodney and waved back. "Go and see what he wants. I'll stay here with the Colonel. I want to make sure his vitals are good."

"Get a nurse to do it and you go see what he wants."

"I'd prefer to check the vitals myself."

"Fine."

Rodney started knocking again, gesturing, and pointing towards the door of the OR. Jacobson grinned.

"I think he wants to join us."

"Don't even think about it. I love Rodney dearly as a friend and fellow scientist but keep him out of here. I don't need him aggravating my patient. Or me for that matter."

Jacobson waved back at Rodney, gestured that he was coming out, started stripping off his gown and grabbing his coat. Carson grabbed a blood pressure cuff and hoped the cauterization and the units of whole blood had produced the desired effect.

((--))

Rodney wanted someone to talk to him and he was peeved that the someone was not Carson but the other guy. The one that had put him in a hospital gown in the first place. The one that seemed to find Rodney amusing.

"I wrote down everything I could think of about John's symptoms, just like Carson asked. Just the highlights mind you but if it's typical, it's about a one month progression from initial infection through to the sickness and then another week or so before he gets a compulsion to knock people out and throw them into water."

Jacobson took the laptop, intrigued despite it all. "How'd he get infected in the first place?"

"Those alien leeches. They were in the river."

"Huh."

"What's 'huh' mean?"

"They must go through some sort of secondary development stage in the stomach. Amazing."

"Personally I don't think of it so much as 'amazing' but more along the lines of, 'oh dear God'".

Jacobson seemed to be on a roll. "Presumably warm blooded animals are their primary host."

Rodney clicked his fingers, latching onto another idea. "Explains why there were no animals when we got there. Maybe they turned up when they were sure the danger had gone. The rain could have been a trigger. Maybe the rain changes the PH somehow, or the rise in river level forces them downstream."

As Rodney surmised some more on the life cycle, Jacobson walked back over towards the bed, Rodney in tow.

"Why don't you get back into bed, and I'll take these into Carson."

McKay blinked, surprised to be back where he started. Jacobson was good. "Oh. You know, I feel fine and I wanted to help."

"And help you did but I think after all you've been through, you deserve a break."

Rodney found himself being expertly guided back into bed. "I'm think I'm over having a break."

"Then think of it as a vacation. I'll make sure you get three meals in bed and I promise to ensure one of them comes with raspberry jello."

"A: I don't like jello and B: stop patronizing me."

"Then think of it this way. If you move again, we'll think you're under the influence of the insects and I'll have to strap you down."

Rodney did as he was told. "For a doctor, you're not that nice."

"The price of dealing with soldiers. They don't respond to nice, they respond to orders. You keep working on your laptop and I'll go tell Carson what you have so far."

Chastened, Rodney did what he was told. He'd had enough he decided. Enough of being pushed around by everyone. First Sheppard and now this Jacobson idiot.

No one appreciated him.

He winced. Great. He had a headache.

((--))

Sheppard came around in the afternoon, still strapped down, his throat felt like it was made of sandpaper, and his stomach felt like a drill instructor had forced him to do sit-ups for an entire morning.

Carson was sitting beside his bed, wearing a hang dog expression that Sheppard figured was an attempt at expressing sympathy. At this point in time, Sheppard felt an overwhelming urge to beat the expression right off the good doctor's face.

He swallowed, grimaced. An expression not unnoticed by Carson.

"Let me get you some ice chips. Not surprisingly your throat might be giving you some aggravation after the day you've had."

"You think?" His price for rasping out sarcasm was the sensation of little men with big razor blades sitting in his throat and slicing the flesh off his tonsils.

Carson lifted a cup, managed to maneuver an ice chip into Sheppard's mouth. Sheppard contemplated letting the ice melt and then spitting in Beckett's direction but dialing down the discomfort won out and instead he let the liquid slide down and try to drown the little men.

"John, I know you're not able to understand fully what's going on at the moment but we're working on a cure. And on the good side - although it's not much of a good side - the parasite is doing damage but it's going to take some time to kill you."

Right. He didn't understand fully. He didn't understand that Carson had more or less said that somehow being infected with parasites that weren't intent on killing him straight away was an upside to the situation. Besides which, he didn't believe Beckett. He'd been lied to before, betrayed before. Always for his own good and in his best interests but it never seemed to work out that way. In the end he was the one that always got burnt.

"Where's your offsider?" Sheppard winced again. Maybe he should just stop talking but for some reason he couldn't shut himself up.

"Doctor Jacobson is checking on Rodney."

Carson dug around in his lab coat pocket and pulled out a commercial foil pack of lozenges. He popped one, gave it to Sheppard.

"According to the packet it's lemon flavored, sugar free, anti-bacterial and a local anesthetic. It's been over six hours since your procedure so you should be okay."

Sheppard sucked on the lozenge, and figured it was about the only solid food he'd had in his mouth in over 24-hours. His stomach fussed as soon as he swallowed.

Irritated he jerked his right hand, pulling on the restraint. Tried to keep his tone pleasant but damned if the calm words he thought he was going to use didn't seem to get turned around on the way out of his mouth.

"If you let me go right now so I can go home, I might not kill you."

Carson, to his credit, tried not to look shocked.

"You're hardly in a position to kill me at the moment."

"Wanna bet?"

"I know you've been trained by the military to get out of all sorts of situations but I'm guessing a five point restraint isn't one of them."

Carson wheeled his stool back from Sheppard's bed side. Sheppard couldn't decide whether he scared the doctor or if it was an expression of the contempt he always knew lurked under that white coat. Yeah, finally the good doctor's true nature was coming out.

Was it that hard for Beckett to let him do what was needed? He just wanted to live out his life on the planet. He didn't mind that it was alone even. Frustrated, he crashed his head down against the pillows. A tiny voice, one that had almost disappeared, told him that right now, he was being an asshole. He ignored it.

"God, it always comes down to this. Everyone so damn sure they know what's best for me, that they understand the situation. No one ever asks me what the hell I want to do…" He was talking more to himself now.

He seemed to have piqued Carson's interest though. He wheeled himself back.

"You know, if I was sure you were in your right mind, I would tell Elizabeth to seriously consider your request. I might not agree with it, I wouldn't understand it, but I wouldn't think it was right to stop you."

"Yeah, well, excuse me if I don't believe you. It's never about the other person, it's all about the power. And hey, I'm military, I understand that. When you're in the military your life is not your own and I know how to take an order. But you know, since I got to Atlantis I kind of hoped some things had changed. No one giving me the evil eye 'cause I wasn't a good soldier boy doing what I was told, even if it meant I was doing something I regarded as immoral. Mind you, it's war. My Dad used to say to me - people start wars in the name of saving lives but it never works out that way. I never got what he meant until I got shipped out. Every dead soldier I saw was usually accompanied by dead civilians. There's something ironic about flying some kid who's had his limbs blown off to a military hospital about ten minutes after someone else in the same military dropped the bomb on him in the first place."

He was rambling now and he didn't know why because he didn't talk about this shit to anyone. No one got it, except for the people that had been there and he'd made a vow early on to shut his mouth and only open it with calculated glibness. Talking made it worse. Talking made the emotions come back and he'd fought hard to suppress them in the first place.

"Then again," he said in an attempt to take back what he'd just said. "I don't expect you to understand."

Beckett looked stunned and Sheppard figured he was never going to hear the end of it. Another reason to stay on the planet. Beckett would have a talk with Heightmeyer and she'd start prying. He'd always held the opinion that psychologists were just people who liked hearing gossip and tragedy so much they went to school and got a certificate so they could do it officially. He suspected Heightmeyer got off on hearing all about people's trauma. Maybe it made her own pitiful life seem better. The voice told him he'd just racked up asshole comment number two. He was going to have to stop thinking dire thoughts about the people he worked with.

"Colonel, I see people die all the time. It's not the same, I admit that. But that's my profession. I try to help my patients but it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes people in the medical community make some crap decisions out of some pig headed need to be right. As a junior doctor it shocked me. I didn't expect to see registrars being fallible. I didn't expect doctor's to dismiss patients as complainers and send them off with a prescription for aspirin. I didn't expect to see my superiors vie for funding for some new piece of diagnostic equipment courtesy of the NHS because it made their resumes look good, rather than it might help someone. So I understand, believe me I understand more than you know."

From the expression on Beckett's face, it seemed that he did.

((--))

Rodney had decided that a ghost was haunting him. A ghost that was wearing combat boots on size 13 feet and weighed as much as a man. The ghost was currently dancing up and down on his head, making sure that the veins throbbed with obscene timing to his heart.

Jacobson was prattling on about something. Something that didn't interest Rodney any more.

"Hey McKay, you with me?"

Jacobson seemed to have noticed that he felt terrible. Rodney watched as Jacobson hauled out his penlight, and tried to shine it in McKay's eyes. That was the last thing he needed. Rodney batted the device away, sat up, tried to get out of bed.

He needed to go where there was peace and quiet. The planet was quiet. He could stay there. Maybe take some people with him. Start a community. He could work on his calculations all day. He'd need a laptop but it could run off a jumper's power just fine.

"McKay, you need to lie back down."

Except Jacobson was in his way and even if Rodney asked nicely, he doubted that Jacobson would want to join his happy band of survivalist scientists. That had a nice ring. Survivalist scientists. Maybe it was a t-shirt slogan.

"Survivalist scientists? What the hell are you talking about?"

Yeah, Jacobson was getting to be damned annoying and he was trying to push Rodney back into bed and a little voice in Rodney's head told him that in about thirty seconds Jacobson was going to panic. Then he'd either jab him with sedative or call for help, or more than likely – both.

There was only one solution for that. Rodney reached out and punched Jacobson square in the bridge of the nose, feeling it break beneath the blow. Definitely surprised both of them. Rodney because he didn't think he could ever hit hard enough to break someone's nose and Jacobson because blood was squirting all of his sparkling white lab coat.

Jacobson staggered back, then looked at Rodney, scared, and picked up the pace of his stagger, heading backwards to the nearest alarm call button.

Rodney, working on instinct, knew he had a limited number of moves. He could take Jacobson out entirely or make a run for it. The still geeky part of him wasn't into having a second crack at the doctor, so he opted for choice number two. Not a great choice considering he was in a hospital gown but still…

McKay turned and ran out the sickbay doors, hospital gown flapping.

To hell with personal dignity.

((--))

Carson had given up talking to Sheppard because the conversation was getting one sided. Mostly it had to do with getting back to the planet and alternated between a reasoned discourse on the advantages of self imposed isolation in a small group of like minded people – to which Carson interpreted as less like minded and more like infected – and how he was going to get out and break Carson's neck with his bare hands.

Seeing his friend and patient swing between bouts of calmness and murderous intent wasn't doing his own levels of anxiety any good.

He was just about to head back to the labs to check on progress when someone hit the alarm and he felt his already sky high heart rate go through the roof.

((--))

No one was more amazed at Rodney's new found abilities than Rodney. He wasn't exactly a total wimp but he wasn't a hero either. He'd pick up a gun but close his eyes when he shot at something. Or he'd take a swing and miss. During one fool hardy occasion he'd even attempted to get Teyla to train him in her fighting techniques and all he'd managed to do was hit _himself_ with his stick. It was the kind of mishap that reduced even the intensely diplomatic Teyla to laughter.

Now that he had a big dose of macho he happily downed the first hapless soldier he came across, knocked him out cold and dragged him into the nearest empty service bay. The Daedalus was a big ship and in Rodney's new and lucky world, remarkably unpopulated.

He stripped the unconscious grunt, dressed himself in fatigues, thought it was cool how he'd managed to knock out a guy who was close to his height and weight. In Rodney's old world he would have punched out someone too tall, or too short, or a woman crew member. Hell it looked like they were even the same shoe size. As an added bonus he also had a Glock and a P90. Nice.

Adrenaline was flowing and Rodney felt super confident. If only Todd and all those other bastards who had tortured him his entire life could see him now. They wouldn't be so dismissive.

He'd get down to the hanger bay, steal a jumper, head back down. Maybe take a few guests along. Like the marine he'd just knocked out. And Sheppard. It'd be good to see the man sweat some because right now Rodney figured he was on an equal footing.

The same voice that had managed to get him out of sickbay told him it was stupid to go back for Sheppard. But the voice that wanted freedom and access to a river hadn't counted on the other voice. The one that was owned by Rodney's ego. The one that said it just wouldn't be a complete day without going back for Sheppard and making him eat every insult he'd ever uttered.

((--))


	10. Chapter 10

_I'm exhausted. Every time I reread a chapter, I keep finding typos and then I'm mortified by my editing slackness. Serves me right for posting when I'm tired. Still, it's depressing. In a fit of pique I've reedited every single chapter and I've replaced them all. That's why this final chapter was delayed. It was being pulled apart. I won't have removed every single typo but I should have at least reduced them. Maybe. _

_And on that note, let's tap dance this story on home._

**Chapter 10**

Ronon and Teyla had joined Caldwell on the bridge after Ronon had briefed him on the current medical problem. Sheppard and McKay were back, albeit worse for wear. Caldwell had dispatched a hazmat team, confident they could lend assistance where needed and if the situation got any worse, he'd be the first one to know. He fully expected his people to do a first rate job, apply quarantine procedures when warranted, and to know when to call for reinforcements.

Teyla had wanted to go back to sickbay after hearing Ronon's account of Sheppard's infection. Ronon had shuddered and told her that the place was best avoided until Carson could find a cure. Caldwell agreed with Ronon. There was no point getting in Jacobson's and Beckett's way.

Teyla acquiesced but he could see that she was worried and Caldwell found himself admiring the way she cared so much for the member's of her team. It made her an asset in a tough situation. She had enough empathy to ensure she would always stick with them, and enough pragmatism to know when it was time to withdraw.

He asked her to remain on the bridge while he contacted Atlantis, distracting Teyla by requesting her help in debriefing Dr. Weir. Ronon on the other hand didn't need any distracting. He was only too happy to be away from the sight of his team leader throwing up bugs.

Caldwell placed an open channel to Atlantis to share the good news with Weir. Well, good news for her, not so good for him. With the successful recovery of Sheppard, it seemed his dream of commanding Atlantis would continue to remain just that. A dream.

It took a few moments to establish the connection and then he heard her voice, slightly distorted with static.

"Colonel."

"Dr. Weir, I'm reporting on the results of our mission."

There seemed to be a long pause, but maybe that was just due to the distance the signal had to travel.

"Go ahead."

"We have successfully recovered both men."

The bridge reverberated with the distorted sound of people cheering. It seemed his call to Weir wasn't exactly a private one. Maybe she'd wanted the population of Atlantis to hear the news simultaneously so that she wasn't faced with announcing their deaths herself, if the results had been different.

"That's great news," said Elizabeth, her voice nearly lost amongst the yelling.

"We're en route back to Atlantis."

"I'll put out the welcome mat."

He thought he heard the pop of a cork in the background. "Dr. Weir, could you put me onto a secure line?"

Her voice changed from one of happiness to wariness. "Of course."

There was a brief pause and the sounds of dozens of other voices disappeared.

"Go ahead, Colonel."

"The situation has been complicated medically."

"Why am I not surprised," said Weir.

"Colonel Sheppard is infected with some sort of parasite. Dr. Beckett and Dr. Jacobson are working on him. He's not critical, but the condition may take some time to resolve."

"And Rodney?"

"He appears to be fine."

"Let me know if John's condition gets any worse."

"Of course."

He was just about to ask Teyla to fill Weir in on the specifics of the rescue mission when the alarm sounded.

"Dr. Weir, I'm going to have to cut this short. Caldwell out."

He abruptly terminated the transmission without any explanation but he presumed she'd heard the klaxon as loudly as he did.

One of his science officers was listening intently to her headset. "Colonel, it's sickbay. They're reporting…" She paused, as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "They're reporting that Dr. McKay assaulted Dr. Jacobson and that he's fled sickbay."

He couldn't believe it either. He was about to reply, when her eyes widened as she received another report.

"Sir, an engineering team just found an unconscious marine. His uniform and weapons are missing."

The logical conclusion was that Rodney McKay, having assaulted a doctor, was also responsible for assaulting the marine. And that same mad scientist was presumably armed. He'd been through some weird situations since he'd been assigned to SGC but for some reason having to consider Rodney McKay armed and dangerous seemed stranger than all of the other situations put together.

He hit the comms button on his chair, "I need a security detail to begin an immediate search for Dr. Rodney McKay. He is in possession of weapons and should be considered a threat. Stun upon sight. Caldwell out."

Ronon and Teyla were instantly alert.

"Do you want us to assist in locating Dr. McKay?" Teyla asked.

"Actually, I've got another job for you. I want both of you to go down and make sure that Drs. Beckett and Jacobson are okay. Evacuate any non essential medical personnel while you're there."

"You're worried about Sheppard?" Ronon clearly didn't see him as much of a threat. "They've got him tied down so tight he needs help sneezing."

"I'm sure they still have him restrained but it's better to be safe than sorry."

The Satedan and Athosian didn't look pleased at being assigned to glorified babysitting duties but truth be told, Caldwell was actually worried about what would happen if the situation with McKay turned sour. If the scientist was beyond reason it was entirely possible he'd use the weapons with little provocation. He really didn't need to be in a situation of explaining to Weir why most of her team was infected, violent, or full of bullet holes.

((--))

Carson gently prodded Jacobson's nose while Ronon and Teyla observed. He was grateful that they were assigned to his protection because Rodney's actions had spooked him. Besides, he didn't like the way that the sickbay was quiet now that the hustle and bustle produced by the rest of the medical staff had gone.

"How much damage did he do?" Jacobson let out a grunt as Carson prodded some more. Even the oxycodone wasn't doing much to dent the pain. Carson stopped prodding and gave Jacobson a bag of ice to place on the area.

"It's not good. Septal fracture of both bones and I think the fragments may be interlocked. The edema's bad so there's no point in trying for a reduction. I'm going to recommend we wait three months for your fracture to heal and then we'll do reconstructive surgery."

"I got punched in the nose once. It wasn't that bad," said Ronon trying to offer sympathy in his own twisted way.

"Ronon, you may have been punched but I do not recall your nose being broken," countered Teyla. "It was a bar fight and your opponent was too drunk to cause much damage."

Carson smiled. Jacobson did not.

"God damn it. I liked my nose. It was a great nose and now I'm going to look like a boxer. The next time I see him, I'm going to kill the little shit."

"Now, now. Rodney's normally as gentle as a lamb. A hypochondriac lamb that complains a lot, but still -"

Jacobson abruptly interrupted. "I'll just have to take your word for it because at the moment he doesn't look very peaceful."

"What?"

Jacobson pointed to an area behind Carson and Carson had no choice but to turn and find himself looking at a psychotic McKay. Dressed like a GI Joe action figure and not nearly as harmless.

Ronon bristled and Teyla instantly went into a defensive stance. Rodney had stealthily snuck into sickbay, P90 haphazardly held with one hand, pointing in a vaguely straight line. Carson had no idea how he'd managed to avoid the security details, but he clearly had. Then again, yesterday Carson didn't think Rodney was capable of punching people. The events of the day were definitely changing his mind.

Before there was time to react, the opportunity had gone. Besides, if Rodney was trigger happy, it wasn't the time to start trying to hit him, or stun him.

"Uh… Rodney. Glad to see you're okay."

Rodney gesture with his P90 towards the direction of the OR.

"We're going to pay Sheppard a visit."

"And why would that be son?"

"Because I need to prove a point."

"Right. And the point is?"

Rodney made a shushing sound. "Less talking Carson and more putting your hands up. You too, Dr. Jacobson. Teyla. Ronon."

They did as they were told. McKay, still clutching the P90, used one hand to pick up Ronon's stunner and throw it to the other side of sickbay.

Ronon seemed to have swung around to Jacobson's point of view on what he'd like to do to Rodney, presumably because there was something shameful about being threatened by a man that Ronon had never previously considered a threat to anything or anyone.

They walked towards the OR, Rodney behind them. Jacobson's nose started bleeding again, dripping down his face. Rodney didn't seem to care.

"Dr McKay, perhaps you should consider what you're doing," said Teyla. Carson had to admire her, even in the face of a crazy team mate she still tried to keep reason in her voice.

"I did Teyla. I considered that I'm sick of Atlantis and everyone complaining about me and then making me save them. Then I considered I really want to go home. To the planet."

There wasn't much they could say to that. They stepped into the OR, Rodney gestured with the P90 in the direction of Sheppard's bed. Ronon and Teyla looked like they were prepared to leap any minute but Carson made a gesture, hoping they'd back off. Considering Rodney's condition, someone was going to get hurt.

Sheppard stopped pulling on the restraints long enough to give Rodney a twisted grin.

"Look who's playing soldier," said Sheppard.

"Yeah. Just look." Rodney seemed to be unmoved by the sarcasm in Sheppard's voice. Carson wished he was somewhere else because the sight of a non whining Rodney was seriously freaking him out.

He watched as Rodney came up close to the bed, leaned down so that he was right in Sheppard's face.

"Not so funny now. Is it?"

Sheppard just kept grinning. "You don't say. Personally I think it's just as funny because I never thought I'd see the Pillsbury Dough Boy in uniform."

Rodney didn't seemed impressed with the response. He brought his P90 up to aim at Sheppard's right temple. Ronon took two steps forward, Teyla put up her hand to stop him. This was not the time to scare Rodney into pulling the trigger, especially when he was clutching a P90. The end result would be spectacularly messy.

"You're all the same. You and Todd and every single one of them. Couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand it that I was smart. So you just did what you always did. Beat me up. Humiliated me. Guess it's my turn."

"Hey, news flash Geek Boy – I'm an Air Force pilot, I get the girls and I qualified for Mensa. I guess that makes me better than you, so I'd say you're just jealous."

Beckett's mouth was gaping and it wouldn't close. He couldn't believe the scene unfolding before him and as much as he was frightened out of his wits, the doctor in him wanted to try and contain the situation.

"Gentlemen, I don't believe you really know what you're saying to each other. You two are good friends."

Rodney and Sheppard both guffawed simultaneously. Sheppard remained unperturbed by the barrel held up snug against his head. Thankfully however, McKay seemed to be changing his mind about killing Sheppard.

"You know, maybe killing you is a stupid idea." Despite Rodney's statement, he didn't bother shifting the position of the gun.

"What makes you say that? Your genius brain getting an idea that's actually useful?"

Carson wished to God they would stop trading insults designed to piss each other off.

"Just that I see what you mean now. About the planet. I want to go back but maybe I could use some company. Do you still want to go back?"

"Hell, yes."

"So we should. Take a few people with us. Maybe the whole ship. Then they'd understand."

Sheppard brightened at the news.

"Yeah! We've got hostages standing right here. Yeah, we could get on the bridge and make them land. You could disable the engines so we couldn't leave. Wouldn't take them long to see things our way."

Rodney was nodding enthusiastically just like he always did when he was getting ready to solve a problem.

"We'd have to take care of Hermiod. He's always been suspicious of me."

"Well, if he's in the way, just shoot him. No one's going to miss some scrawny Asgard."

Rodney smiled at the suggestion. "Hey, that's right. I've got a gun now!"

Carson felt compelled to have another attempt at trying to talk some sense into them, even if they were clearly beyond sense. Or reason.

"Rodney, Colonel. Perhaps we could stop for a moment and just think about what we're doing."

They both seemed to find his pleas amusing.

"Right. Sit down. Maybe we could have a cup of tea. I'll take two sugars," giggled Rodney.

Carson tried to ignore the fact that Rodney was turning out to be an even more sarcastic bugger than he normally was. He was about to summon up a retort, his patience worn thin, when McKay aimed for one of the wrist restraints. They were conveniently made of a double wrap Velcro. Near impossible to remove by the patient, but easy enough for a doctor or nurse to undo in an emergency. Or easy enough for one man infected with mind altering parasites to undo with his left hand while aiming an automatic weapon with his right. At that point Beckett mentally noted to himself that his next medical supply order would involve heavy duty models with D-ring buckles. It would serve them right. He moved back as Rodney waved them aside and undid the other restraint. Sheppard sat up, undid the chest and the ankle restraints and slid off the bed.

Carson wished to God that the man would stop smiling. It was disturbing.

It was at that point, with Rodney distracted and Sheppard still getting off the gurney that both Ronon and Teyla took their chance. They charged.

It was the wrong move. Rodney whirled, panicked, and did what Carson feared the most. He pulled the trigger.

The shots were wild, hitting the floor. The ricochets were not. As the bullets sliced around her, Teyla instinctively went into a crouch, trying to protect her torso. It was unsuccessful as fragments, still moving at high speed, broke and bounced back up, hitting her in the abdomen. As she went down, she seemed genuinely stunned that her luck appeared to have run out. Rodney watched as she fell to the floor. Emotion's twitched across his face, changing like the weather. Horror. Satisfaction. Then he burst out laughing.

Ronon, meanwhile, had gone for Sheppard. He should have learnt his lesson from his previous encounter. Sheppard had always been strong but now he had the added bonus of being pumped up on adrenaline and presumably, alien hormones.

Sheppard grabbed one of Ronon's arms before Ronon had time to react and found himself flung off balance into the gurney. As Ronon staggered down, his legs going out from under him, he tried to brace by locking his legs. At that point Sheppard simply used all of his force and stamped on the front of Ronon's knee.

From Ronon's shocked grunt and the crack, Carson was sure that Sheppard had just broken Ronon's knee cap.

The Satedan did not get up.

Carson's first instinct was to rush to Teyla, the more gravely injured and start treating her. He moved forwards, forgetting that he was being held hostage, completely focused on the woman on the floor, blood forming a puddle underneath her.

A hand went to his arm, holding him back. It was Jacobson.

"Now's not the time to get yourself killed." Jacobson was whispering.

Carson tried shaking off the hand but Jacobson gripped him tightly. He was right of course. There was no predicting what Sheppard or McKay would do if he made any unexpected moves, and he couldn't very well treat any of them if he'd been injured himself. Logic told him that he would just have to bide his time. The doctor part of him railed against the concept of having to watch a friend bleed out on a cold floor, millions of miles from home.

Sheppard took no further notice of Ronon, who could only lie where he fell, face contorted in agony. Instead, Sheppard rubbed at his wrists, appraised Rodney, and slapped him on the back.

"That alarm's annoying."

"Uh huh. Means they'll be looking for us."

"Good thing we both know the ship inside out."

"Good thing we've got hostages." McKay said the sentence with a skin crawling amount of gusto.

"Did you bring another weapon?"

"I've got the Glock." Rodney pointed at his holster. "You can have that."

"I was hoping for the P90."

"It's mine!" Rodney pulled the gun closer to him, clutching it like a childhood teddy bear.

Sheppard's smile faded, and he frowned. "Aw, come on McKay. You know I'm better at handling the P90."

McKay pursed his lips, seemed to consider the request. Carson wondered if Rodney's decision to pass the weapon to someone who could use it correctly indicated the last vestiges of sanity or just that Rodney thought Sheppard would be more efficient at killing the next person who surprised them. "Okay. I guess we can swap."

Sheppard passed over the Glock; McKay reluctantly gave Sheppard the P90. Dressed in scrubs there was nothing to clip the weapon to, so Sheppard held it with one hand, pointing it towards the floor.

"I'm going to check the sickbay doors are locked. Keep an eye on the two cream puffs here."

"What about Teyla and Ronon?"

"I don't think they'll be causing us any more problems."

McKay nodded, pointed his gun, standing in some crazed stance only seen in amateur videos made by teenagers with disturbing gun fetishes. "Everyone just stay where they are!"

Carson risked a glance at Jacobson, whose chin was now caked in dried blood. Teyla was on the floor, barely conscious. Ronon had rolled onto his side, his face pale, eyes screwed up in agony. They had to get Sheppard and Rodney under control and quickly, but he had no idea how they were going to pull off that particular job. He spared another glance at Jacobson, and Jacobson caught his gaze, directed his eye line down to a tray. Carson had drawn off another dose of lorezepam just before the alarm was activated. The capped syringe was ready to go and easy enough to reach for.

Right. That was a plan. A dumb plan but a plan anyway and he needed to act because he didn't like the way Rodney was sweating profusely. Or the way he was seesawing his aim between the two doctors as if they were top notch SAS personnel.

Beckett made a decision. He pointed towards the wall, away from McKay.

"What the hell is that!" He faked being scared and it wasn't hard to do. It was probably the best performance he'd given in his life.

Rodney spun around, twitchy and nervous. "What! What did you see!"

"That! The thing on the wall!"

Rodney swiveled around again, looking for the whatever-it-was. Carson spied Jacobson carefully palming the syringe.

"Over there man! My God, can't you see it!"

"Shut up, Carson and let me concentrate."

Rodney swung around again, completely distracted from his task of guarding his hostages. Sheppard was right. He had a long way to go before he made it to soldier status.

As Rodney shifted his focus, Jacobson pocketed the hypodermic.

"My mistake, Rodney. I thought I saw one of the insects."

McKay frowned. "Is that all?"

"Is that all? Forgive me for being a little paranoid about being infected by one of them."

"You'll get used to it."

"That's hardly a recommendation," replied Beckett.

McKay shrugged, and Sheppard arrived back in the room, gripping the P90 for all it was worth. The Colonel beckoned towards the captives.

"Let's get this show on the road. McKay you get behind them. Beckett, give me your radio. I've got a call to make."

He didn't need to be told twice. He handed it over as speedily as possible, trying not to touch Sheppard's hand. He thought he knew how the parasite was spread but he wasn't taking any chances.

"Hey, Colonel Caldwell. It's Sheppard. You there?"

The response was immediate with Caldwell's tone its usual cool self, reflecting neither surprise, puzzlement or concern.

"Caldwell here. Something I can do for you?"

"Yeah, we're having a little hostage party down here. My buddy Rodney and I thought we might make some demands."

"_Excuse me_?"

Carson had just learnt what could fluster Caldwell. Considering it wasn't every day they had two of Atlantis' star performers' tap dancing on the stage of the psychotic, he was pretty sure he would never see Caldwell out of his league again.

"Rodney and I took Dr. Beckett and Dr. Jacobson hostage. Rodney shot Teyla and Ronon's not happy about his knee being broken. "

"Did you just say…," Caldwell's voice tapered off. "Can you repeat?"

"If you don't land the Daedalus on the planet, I think Rodney is going to kill everyone in sickbay. Aren't you Rodney?"

McKay nodded earnestly.

"Any preferences?"

It took McKay about two seconds to show that he did indeed have preferences for his first target.

"It's going to be Dr. Jacobson. He's expendable because he's a military doctor and they'll replace him on the next run to Earth. Besides, I don't like him."

Jacobson narrowed his eyes, muttered under his breath. "Seriously. I'm going to kill him."

Beckett tried performing the breathing exercises he'd coached a few pregnant woman through because really, he wasn't breathing that well. Not calmly anyway. More like a panicked gasping. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

"Quit it or you'll hyperventilate." Rodney looked peeved. "And I'm not going to be able to find a paper bag for you."

"Colonel, you know I am not allowed to negotiate with terrorists," said Caldwell.

"You're hurting me feelings. We're not terrorists."

"You've taken hostages and you're making demands that I can't possibly meet. I think that counts as terrorism."

Sheppard rolled his eyeballs. "Oh fine. Everyone's a critic. So does that mean you're not going to land the ship?"

"Not at this moment. No. It does mean that I am going to come down to sickbay and talk to you personally."

"That's hardly a trade. Rodney, do you want to talk to Caldwell? I don't."

"No, he's boring. Maybe they could send Hermiod instead. I need to point out an error to him. With my fist."

"Good one, McKay. I like you more and more every minute."

"What, you didn't like me before?"

"Yeah, but you weren't that much fun. Except when you had on that personal force field."

"That was cool when you pushed me off the balcony."

"I liked shooting you better."

For some reason both men found the idea hilarious. They cracked up laughing and pointed at each other and Sheppard placed the radio down on the gurney, apparently uninterested in talking to Caldwell any further. It offered some hope to Carson. He wondered if the alteration in their brain chemistry had now produced an unforeseen endorphin hit. They seemed to be moving into euphoria and that meant they were less inclined to start splattering their hostages' brains all over the wall.

He thought fast and offered up a comedy gem of his own. "What about the time Rodney took all of the Wraith enzyme?"

Rodney looked astonished that Carson was opening his mouth and then continued laughing.

"I was crazy!"

"And I missed it?" Sheppard was laughing so hard he was clutching his sides.

Carson kept up his patter, noticing that both of them were completely distracted. The gun pointing wasn't as focused, nor were they paying much attention to anything around them. Rodney had nearly doubled over he was laughing so hard. Carson gestured to Jacobson who began edging gently in the direction of Sheppard. If they had to drug someone, it made sense to drug the man who was the more dangerous physically. Carson just hoped he could take Rodney.

"Yes, Colonel, you should have seen him. Complete loon. Dangerously high blood pressure. Raving, paranoid. He could have died," continued Carson.

"Awwwwwww," said Sheppard, pulling a face at Rodney. Rodney returned the compliment and giggled.

"I think something's wrong," said Rodney as he giggled some more and then hiccupped. "I don't think we're supposed to be standing here laughing."

Sheppard was trying to get a breath. "I know. Weren't we going to.. uh… Take over the ship? Or something?"

"Right. Yes. Take over the ship. We should still try that."

At about that moment, Jacobson was behind Sheppard and plunged the now uncapped hypodermic into Sheppard's butt and depressed the plunger as fast as he could.

"Owwwww! What the fuck?" Sheppard whirled, his good mood gone, his gun now aimed at Jacobson's head.

McKay, in the meantime, started to panic. Carson figured he didn't know what to do with a coup in his midst. Beckett took his main chance, decided it was either now or never. It was the daftest thing he'd ever do in his life, but he simply wrenched the gun from Rodney's grasp. Rodney regarded him with wide eyes and a shocked expression. Carson swiftly moved behind Rodney, wrapped him in a bear hug, and locked his hands in front of Rodney's chest.

Sheppard, meanwhile, appeared to be unable to stand upright. Beckett had thought he'd take a while to drop as adrenaline tended to counteract the effects but no, he was going down nicely. As if on cue, Sheppard made one last attempt to get to his feet, and then promptly wound up sitting his punctured butt on the floor. Then he pitched over and was out cold.

That just left Rodney. Jacobson was now in front of the scientist, curling up his right fist.

"Theodore, for God's sake, don't hit him! He doesn't know what he's doing!"

Jacobson considered Carson's request momentarily before he pulled back his arm and then got off a solid punch into McKay's face, hitting him in the eye.

"Theodore! Leave him alone!"

Carson debated about letting Rodney go, and trying to subdue Jacobson. He was supposed to prevent Rodney from killing them and possibly killing himself, not holding him so Jacobson could give him a beating.

Rodney was starting to struggle again and Carson found it hard to hold on, especially now that the scientist was enraged from being hit.

"I'm going to kill you!" The threat was directed at Jacobson. "You could have blinded me, you son of a bitch!"

"You'll be fine. I pulled my aim. You'll just bruise."

McKay lunged, Carson held on, Jacobson went back to the tray and loaded another hypodermic. McKay made for Jacobson, dragging Carson behind him.

"Could you hurry it up just a wee bit? I've got my hands full."

"Don't sweat it Carson. He's going nighty-night in about thirty seconds."

Two things happened right at the same time. Carson's radio crackled into life. Susan's voice could be heard and he couldn't quite make out the words but it sounded like she was saying something about a cure. Then someone lobbed a Flashbang grenade into the OR.

The grenade went off and Carson found an image of the OR temporarily seared onto the back of his retinas by two million candelas and his equilibrium overwhelmed by the percussive force of 175 decibels. He promptly fell over.

On the positive side, at least someone had managed to unlock the sickbay doors. Presumably that's what Caldwell had meant when he said he'd be paying a personal visit.

((--))

Rodney woke up only able to see out of one eye and that one eye was vaguely irritated and sore. He started to panic about losing his eyesight and then tried to pull up a hand to rub his eye and found out that not only did he appear to have an IV in his hand but he was also strapped down. He turned his head, found an IV pole containing two bags. One of whole blood, another of saline. Both ran down the plastic tubing to his arm.

His brain spontaneously recalled a fuzzy memory of himself, running around in someone's stolen BDU, threatening anyone and everyone with certain death. Then he recalled shooting Teyla and thinking he'd struck comedy gold.

Shit. That was horrifying. Unforgivable. Inexcusable. He wanted to crawl under a rock and hide.

How the hell had it come to this? Oh. Right. The parasite. He turned his head, saw Sheppard had been tied into a sitting position on a bed. Conscious. Looking uncomfortable and contrite as a nurse slipped two pills onto his tongue and let him sip water through a bendy straw in a plastic mug.

The nurse saw that he was conscious.

"I'll go and get Dr. Beckett. He wanted to know when you were awake."

"You okay?" Sheppard asked. He was whispering as if his throat and his head hurt. Actually, come to think of it, Rodney's head and throat hurt as well.

"Yeah, I think so. What happened?"

"You don't remember?"

"Kind of. It's not very clear in places."

"I've got the same problem. There are gaps. Unfortunately there aren't any gaps where it counts."

Rodney knew exactly what he meant. He remembered what he'd done to Teyla and he had a vague recollection of Sheppard unhesitatingly snapping Ronon's leg. Then there was the matter of the ill-fated marine that he'd pounded on when he escaped. He was full of remorse and couldn't fathom how he could begin to make up for so many heinous acts.

"Are Teyla and Ronon okay?"

"Carson said Teyla made it out of surgery but she'll be in intensive care for a couple of days. Ronon's going to be in a cast for months." Sheppard's voice tapered off. "We really screwed up."

Rodney didn't reply because he was in total agreement.

Sheppard continued to stare at him woefully. "I, uh… Made your life miserable down on the planet. I can't make up for it. About the only thing I can do is apologize. I'm sorry, Rodney."

"You forgot that I tasered you and held a gun to your head. I'm sorry too."

"I should bloody think so," said Carson. He seemed to be alternating between annoyed and relieved. "Mental buggers, both of you."

They ignored Carson's insult because they both wanted to know the same thing.

Rodney broached the subject. "Is Teyla really okay?"

"Aye, Rodney. It's going to take her a couple of days before she's completely out of the woods but she should be just fine."

Rodney closed his eyes in relief now that he'd heard it personally from Carson. It made him feel marginally better. But not by much.

"If you're worried Rodney, I've asked her. She understands that you weren't in your right mind. She said that she forgives you."

Rodney nodded. He'd see her later. Try to apologize, not that he was any good at it. He was uncomfortable so he changed the subject. "I'm not infected any more am I?"

"Actually you are, but you're well on the way to mending. Turns out we carried the correct drug to treat the problem. Susan found it on the first try for which both of you should both be eternally thankful."

"What's the cure?" Rodney was curious.

"Rather astoundingly it's a combination of atovaquone and proguanil. "

"Why's that astounding?"

"It's an antiprotozoal, used to treat malaria. I always used to think whoever packed it for a mission to another galaxy was an idiot."

Rodney almost laughed as he cast his mind back to his days on the planet and his eternal gratefulness for the bucket.

"I know what you mean."

"I still had to get those damn egg sacs out. Not an enjoyable job I can tell you."

Rodney dimly recalled throwing up. "I had the same parasite Sheppard had?"

"You did. Not as high a load but you definitely did. Did you have any open wounds at the time Sheppard was infected?"

Rodney cast his mind back to the cut on his finger, and nodded. "Then how come I didn't show the symptoms that Sheppard did? He got sick down on the planet."

"As far as I can figure out, you were asymptomatic."

"You're kidding me."'

"Asymptomatic?" It was Sheppard, trying to keep up with the conversation.

"Yes, rather amazingly, Rodney McKay - prone to allergies, delicate equilibrium, and sensitive to pain - didn't bother to display any symptoms of infection until right near the end."

"Huh," said Rodney because he was amazed to hear the news. He got symptoms for everything real and imaginary. It wasn't every day that he learned he'd been running around infected with parasites and didn't even know.

"By the way, I've surmised that your brain chemistry was altered. You were both massively uninhibited. By what I'm not sure, but you probably got a big dose of dopamine, and some other neurotransmitters to make you behave in a certain fashion. It also seems the parasites were manufacturing alcohol right into your blood stream. I took a blood test after we had you both restrained. I also did an MRI to check for cysts or damage and it's clean."

Sheppard sighed in relief. It summed up Rodney's feelings as well.

"Why the alcohol?" asked Rodney.

"Not entirely sure. We think it was an added boost to lowering your ability to judge a situation. Probably designed as a last ditch survival effort in the animals it normally infects. An animal's behavior wouldn't be as extreme. It would probably just collapse in the river, or go to sleep – whatever predated it would be infected as well."

Rodney found himself wondering about the cats. They were probably a bigger threat than he'd estimated.

Carson continued, "The best we can surmise is that the leech is the reproductive stage of the parasite. We thought it was the larvae but we're not even sure it has a larval stage. From what we can determine it transmits its genome by simultaneously injecting the worm into the blood stream, and sucking blood into itself – presumably to exchange DNA if its feeding on an infected animal."

"That's gross," said Sheppard.

"But interesting," replied Beckett.

"I'm with Sheppard on this one," said Rodney.

"So, uh, when can you let us go?" Sheppard looked unhappy and contrite but had at least summoned up the courage to ask. Rodney had decided not to because he wasn't entirely sure he deserved to be let out of sickbay. Sure, their actions had a reason; it was understandable that they did what they did. Maybe. It was hard but damned if he didn't think he deserved to be punished. His Jiminy Cricket conscience was telling him that the words coming out of his mouth at the time and his obsession with teenage enemies couldn't all be ascribed to alien influence. That disturbed him.

Carson crossed his arms. "Here's what's going to happen. You're both going to stay there, trussed up like two haggis' waiting to be gently simmered, and every four hours a nice nurse is going to come by and stuff some medication down your throat. When your blood work shows clean, which should be in two days, you can go back to the guest quarters, under guard."

"Would it help if we said we were sorry? Because believe me Carson, we really are." Rodney felt an apology was in order even if they had been infected with parasites. It was the best he could do under the circumstances.

"It probably would, but not right now. I know I should be feeling a bit more sorry for both of you lads but I'm still a wee bit upset over yesterday's incident."

Rodney's reply was interrupted by Jacobson entering the room. He gave Rodney a particularly baleful glare and then made a show of setting down a large tray armed with empty blood collection tubes. There were twenty in all. Rodney gulped. Even Sheppard seemed to pale.

"Time to get some fresh blood samples."

"Isn't there something in the Geneva convention that talks about not using prisoners for medical experiments?" Rodney could feel a whine in his voice. It was as natural and as familiar as breathing and that's what he needed. Something familiar as a form of distraction.

"Yes, but this isn't a medical experiment. We need the blood work to determine how fast the level of infection is dropping. Who wants to go first?"

Rodney, unable to stand the thought of getting stuck with yet another needle cracked and said, "Sheppard has a high tolerance for pain. He won't even blink. Do him first."

Jacobson took that as an indication that Rodney was volunteering and went looking for a vein. Carson, in the interim, turned and sauntered back out of sickbay. Sounded like they were both getting back to their normal selves, for which he thanked God. The fracas in sickbay had probably resulted in quite a few broken fences that needed mending and he imagined that the entire team needed sessions with Heightmeyer. But they were resilient and they would bounce back. As if to prove it, he heard the start of a familiar conversation that signaled Rodney and Sheppard were doing what they always did when faced with a tough situation. Verbally sparring with each other.

"We're screwed, we are so totally screwed," said Rodney.

"We're sort of screwed. Not totally screwed. There's a difference."

**THE END**


End file.
